Parallel Lies (10 page)

She caught him staring back out the window. He explained, vamping for a lie of his own, “My wife—my ex-wife—” he was already off to a lousy start, “went into the Powell a few minutes ago. Dressed to the nines.”

“You’re following her?”

“Pitiful, isn’t it?” He hoped this might send her running, angry at himself for identifying himself to anyone. Anyone! To his surprise, this seemed to have the opposite effect.

Jillian said, “Let me catch these other tables. I’ll be right back.” Harmless enough words, but her eyes betrayed a definite attempt to maintain the connection with him. She had been twelve going on twenty, as he recalled. She’d had an obvious crush on him that amused her older brother but had made Alvarez uncomfortable, because even at that age she’d been too much woman and too little child. Women of all types, all ages, were attracted to his dark looks. “It’s the charisma, not the skin tone,” his wife, Juanita, had once told him. She claimed that he charmed women simply walking into a room and smiling, and that for the sake of their marriage he had to learn to control it. Control it, he had. Through eleven years he had never entertained a single unfaithful
thought—at least he chose to remember it that way. These last two he’d been celibate, focused, even consumed, with the truth. Settlement. Restitution. His chest knotted and he caught himself tightly gripping the stem of the wine glass. He was ten years older than Jillian, he reminded himself. He had no interest in women. And yet he had to force himself to relax, amazed it could be so difficult.

But he tensed again, this time Jillian’s sultry eyes the farthest thing from his mind. What caught his attention was the uniformed limousine driver approaching the Town Car. Alvarez left a ten-dollar bill on the table and hurried for the door. He cut across traffic and caught up to the man just as he unlocked the driver’s door.

Alvarez fished out the two hundred dollars and gripped it in his fist. Distracted, he caught sight of Jillian standing by his table and cupping her hands to see out the glass.

“Excuse me,” Alvarez said, a world away from his hobo existence.

The driver stood up, his dark eyes evaluating Alvarez, who had donned a pair of sunglasses. “Help you?” He sounded Eastern European.

Alvarez took the driver by the arm and forced the two hundred into his fist. The driver resisted, until he saw it was money.

“Listen,” Alvarez said. “It’s really simple. I saw your … passenger, and if I read it right …then you can help me. It’s an escort service, right?”

The driver attempted to hand back the money. “Hey, buddy—”

“No, no, no! You keep the money whether I’m right or wrong. If I’m right, you have a first name for her and a phone number I can call. That’s all I ask. No addresses, nothing personal.” Alvarez glanced over his shoulder at the hotel, as if longing for her. “Her manager. Whatever. I don’t need anything more than that.”

The driver considered. “I just drive them. I don’t know their business. It’s my business
not
to know their business.”

“So make an exception,” Alvarez said. He grabbed the man by the hand and made him squeeze that money. “Special circumstances.”

“It’s an exclusive service, my friend.”

“I can tell that just by looking,” Alvarez replied.

“You need references—referrals. It’s
very
exclusive.”

“Mr. Takimachi’s my referral,” Alvarez pressed. He’d done his legwork. Takimachi was the man she had entertained the second time he’d followed her.

“I do not know this name,” the driver lied. “Besides,” he said, burdened by a tongue that didn’t appreciate English, “if you have a referral, then you have everything you need.”

“Mr. Takimachi does not like to share. Not
that,
anyway,” Alvarez said, indicating the hotel. “Who can blame him?”

The driver simply stared.

“Please,” Alvarez pleaded. “So sue me for being male. My name is Cortez,” he lied. “I’m a conqueror.”

The driver grinned at that. “You request Gail,” he said. He recited an Internet address.

“No phone number?”

“You request Gail. Mention Takimachi. They will e-mail back to you.”

“The Internet?”

“These people are careful,” the driver said. He added, “You should be, too.”

Alvarez flushed with heat, set off by the warning. He didn’t need to compound his problems. He nodded, glad for the heads up.

He had accomplished what he had come to do. Even so, in a moment of weakness, he returned to the restaurant and his table by the window. It took him a moment to realize the glass of wine had been cleared.

“You’re back,” Jillian said. A coy grin.

Indicating the hotel, he said, “She’s not my ex-wife.”

“Okay.”

“She’s a woman who owes me something. Her father, actually …The details aren’t important. He’d rather put me in the hospital than repay that debt.” He invented this as he went along, wondering if any of it sounded credible and reminding himself that short lies worked better than longer ones. “I’ve just discovered I’m being watched. The father, I think. I can’t go home tonight.”

“That’s understandable.” She seemed to be looking through him, to have expected something like this from him. It left Alvarez feeling disconcerted.

“I’ll take a room …in a hotel, but running into you just now …I’d love the company, a friendly face, if you’re not busy after you’re done here.” He went for broke; he lowered his sleepy gaze, wandering from her eyes to her ankles. “Would you have any interest in that?” He wasn’t sure why he lied, why he wanted the company—in celebration perhaps. He’d had two major successes. He tried not to face the real reason he pursued her—if caught in the next week, he would never have such company again.

“My roommate and I, we usually go clubbing.”

“Whatever.”

“I won’t let you take a hotel room,” she informed him. “That’s ridiculous.”

The couple at the next table were listening in. Alvarez gave the guy a dismissive look and won back their privacy.

She said, “It’s a studio down at Sheridan Square. Small. We share a double bed,” she addressed the customer at the next table, “and
not
the way you’re thinking.” To Alvarez she said, “We’ll work something out.”

“The hotel,” he said, “is not a problem.”

She grinned. “Let me check with her when I get a minute.”

Alvarez adjusted his position, affording himself a view of the hotel.

The Town Car had once again double-parked in front. The blonde left the hotel, leaned in, and spoke to the driver.

Alvarez checked his watch—perhaps her John had stood her up. At the same time, he chastised himself for allowing Jillian to distract him. The blonde now headed across the street toward the restaurant. He’d been sloppy, and this realization hit him hard.

She looked angry. The Town Car pulled away.

“She’s coming over here,” Jillian said softly.

Alvarez spun around. “Yes.”

She met eyes with him. “Quite a looker, that one.” She added sarcastically, “You’re sure you’re not stalking her?”

He said, “Write down the club for me, would you?” The napkins were linen. He searched for something to write on. Jillian produced a notepad and leaned down, putting pen to paper.

“We can go together from here,” she encouraged, “or meet you there.”

She handed him the name and address of a club. “We stop serving here at midnight, which means we’re usually out by one, one-thirty. We’ll be there around two.” She pulled out a twenty-dollar bill from her bank and folded the president in on himself. She turned the folded edge to face Alvarez. “The guy at the door …hand him a twenty folded in half, the fold facing him. Just like this, or he won’t let you in.” She added, “We’ll be inside.”

Alvarez pocketed the address. The blonde came through the door. Again, Alvarez adjusted his chair, this time, away from the door. He felt trapped. He couldn’t afford to be seen by this woman—there was a possibility she might know his face. He reached out, took Jillian by the hips, and moved her into the line of sight, blocking him.

“Another wine?” she asked. She clearly liked the contact.

He wasn’t sure what to do. He glanced around Jillian, the
blonde’s back to him. She was shown to a table and was seated partially
facing
the restaurant’s door.

“Another wine,” he said.

The blonde pulled a cell phone out of her enormous shoulder bag and immediately began complaining to someone on the other end. Her whole body conveyed anger. A coffee drink was served to her.

Alvarez caught eyes with Jillian, who now stood at the bar awaiting his wine. He cocked his head in the direction of the restaurant’s rear exit.

The couple sitting next to him continued to take this all in like a pair of theater patrons.

Jillian negotiated her way past several tables. She looked over at him and nodded. Alvarez understood then: she was providing another screen for him.

He carefully watched the huge mirror behind the bar, knowing that if the blonde happened to look in that direction, their images would meet. He stood and walked slowly, not wanting to attract attention. Jillian’s eyes met his in the mirror—she was smiling, proud of herself. He allowed his eyes to smile back, and then he carefully made for the rear exit.

“They’ve found a body,” Tyler said, pounding on Nell Priest’s motel room door. They had taken rooms in a cheap roadside motel a few minutes’ drive from the center of the small town. Bone weary and cold, Tyler had gone to bed in a foul mood. He was using up one perfectly good night of expense account living on a hole-in-the-wall. Two beers into the six-pack, he’d gotten an even better description of the lumberjack who’d put a hatchet through the rider’s foot—this time, added to the man’s broad shoulders was the color of his hair, “sandy,” and the sound of his voice, “southern cracker.” The Latino whom this man believed had passed through the camp was never described beyond his heritage, “Spanish, maybe a little Italian.” But Tyler reveled in this information. It amounted to the first solid leads in what now, with the discovery of a body, appeared a likely murder case.

He had not slept well, wondering if he might have done something different in order to keep his relationship with Katrina. For some reason, Nell Priest made him think about Kat, and he warned himself not to mix pleasure with business. Priest had her own agenda. Northern Union’s interests were not necessarily those of the NTSB. On the practical side, the shower water had been tepid and with no water pressure to speak of. He’d left a layer of soap on his skin that had dried to a persistent itch.

“Do you have hot water?” she called through her motel room door.

“No.”

“Yeah? Well, I can’t live without a shower! I’m waiting until the water heats back up!”

“Don’t count on it.” He didn’t want to waste time, but he also didn’t want to leave ahead of her and renew their competition. A truce had settled between them, and the raid on the camp had united them. He didn’t want to mess with that. “We’ve got to go. Right now. We’re closer to where they found this body than anybody else. We could get a jump on this.”

“How’d you hear about it?”

He sensed she was dressing on the other side of that door. It provoked distracting images in his head. “State troopers,” he answered. “Believe it or not, that desk sergeant actually wrote down my cell phone number.”

“A double skinny latté,” she said. “I’ll be ready by the time you’re back.”

“In this town? Don’t count on it,” he answered. “Dunkin Donuts, maybe. High-test?”

She cracked the door, standing back so he couldn’t see the rest of her. Again, his imagination ran away with him, and he filled in the blanks. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Cream-filled, or jelly?” he asked.

“You
are
kidding?”

“High-test with Coffee-mate,” he repeated, altering her order, “no sugar, no pastry.”

She caved in. “One of those braided things. With almonds, if they have them.”

“We’re going to get along fine,” he said. “You have exactly ten minutes. After that, I go without you.” He headed down the sorry excuse of a hallway toward the sorry excuse of a lobby.

She called after him, “Why didn’t you?”

Tyler turned. She was leaning a little farther around the
door, and he could see an expanse of smooth, dark amber skin. Maybe more than she would have wanted him to see.

She completed her thought, “Leave without me?”

He fought back the smirk, but it crept onto his face in spite of his efforts. “Ten minutes,” he repeated.

Less than an hour later, the empty coffees in their respective cars, Tyler and Priest parked alongside a perfectly straight two-lane road, surrounded by fields and distant woods. There was an ambulance and a couple of state police vehicles pulled off the road. They followed the trail of many boots in the snow as it paralleled a lone set of cross-country ski tracks.

The crystal clear air smelled only of the snow, so pure, so fresh, that in fact it held no smell whatsoever, the way clean water has no taste. The only sounds were those of the woods—the clicking call of squirrels, the lonely, plaintive song of wintering birds, the gentle rattle of a few determined leaves that had stayed behind.