Slow Burn (10 page)

"Still
seems like a whole lot of trouble, without much reward."

"Mr. Del
Fuego, beneath all that rural charm, is one of those unfortunate creatures who
harbors what used to be called a good old-fashioned mean streak. Nowadays, they
probably have some other name for it and count it as a disability, for which
one can collect a government dole. But that's how it is. Ifs how he's operated
since the very beginning. You only have to look at how he got his first restaurant
and at that poor woman and her family."

I knew who she
meant, but I played along.

"What
woman is that?"

"His first
wife. I believe her name was Sheila Somers. She had a nice little steak house where
she used to play the piano and sing."

"Where and
when was this?"

"Allstin, Texas," Abby said. "What . . . eighteen, twenty years ago. She made the
great mistake of marrying our friend Willie Wogers."

"Who's
that?"

"That's
his real name, you know. Long o—Wogers. Willie. He was just another small-time
hoodlum and gambler." "Interesting," I said.

"She
killed herself. Hanged herself in the garage, or . . ." Abby eyed the
room. "At least that's what the authorities ruled," she finally said.

"Really."

"Less than
two years after they were married."

Her tone
suggested she considered it a minor miracle -that the woman had lasted that
long. "And Jack got the business?"

"And I'll
give him this," she said. "He had sense enough to see that the market
was ripe for expansion. In those days, venture capitalists were coming out of
the woodwork trying to give away money. There was a real gap in the upscale
steak business."

"You said
something about her family."

"She had
two children by a previous marriage. A boy and a girl. In their early teens.
They lived with their father."

"Probably
for the best," I offered lamely. " She sighed. "One would have
thought so."

I knew what my
line was supposed to be. "But?"

"Oh, I
hate to gossip."

Oh, yeah. I
held my piece. She didn't disappoint. "Sometimes," she mused,
"bad things come in threes." "What was next?" I prodded.
"The father dropped dead." "And Jack ended up with the
kids?" "Hardly," she scoffed. "Mr. Del Fuego is without a
nurturing bone in his entire bloated body." "She have family? "

"Just some
trailer-trash sister who wouldn't take them."

-  
"So?"

"He farmed
them out to foster care, where, as I understand it, they came to bad
ends." "Bad ends?"

Abby showed me
a small palm. "I can say no more," she said, then took my elbow and
turned me toward the door.

"I assure
you, Mr. Waterman, my security needs are under complete control. Would you
please remember to thank Sir Geoffrey for his concern." I was getting the
boot.

"Mr. Del
Fuego denies vandalizing your property."

She stopped in
her tracks. Drapeman and Doorman stood in the middle of the room. That's when
she told Spaulding to get the tape.

When Spaulding
reappeared, he wasn't alone. Brie Meyerson was not at all what I expected.
First off, she wasn't a kid. Contrary to rumor, Brie Meyerson was a full-blown
woman of about twenty. Not beautiful, but pretty in an old-fashioned sort of
way. She smelled of soap and her hair was still damp.

Her mother
introduced us and then turned toward the entertainment center, where Frick and
Frack were trying to get the tape to play. "Is there a problem?" Her
tone suggested that problems were only for the lame and the halten.

When she didn't
get an answer, Abigail Meyerson walked over and began to add her two cents to
the problem. Spaulding called them a bunch of spazzes and popped another Coke.

Brie asked me,
"And what part in this circus do you play?"

I told her, and
then turned the question around.

She was
entering her junior year at Bryn Mawr College. Her mother had insisted that
both she and Spaulding, who had just flunked out of either his fifth or sixth
prep school, accompany her for the summer to get a feel for the business. It
had been a nightmare.

"Two weeks
to go," she whispered. "Bye. Nice to meet you."

She slipped out
the door and was gone just as Spaulding couldn't take it anymore. "Jesus.
Here, let me in there."

He crossed the
room, knelt before the VCR, pushed a couple of buttons and stood off to the
side, grinning for all he was worth.

Me, I readied
my poker face. I was the man of steel.

"I hope,
Mr. Waterman, that this will give you some idea of the depths of perversity to
which this man has sunk."

The picture
flickered on. Color. Good production values. Probably made for a promotional or
training film. Abigail Meyerson stood behind an oak podium, speaking into a
microphone. Over her left shoulder, the head- of a neon Angus bull winked down
in good-natured invitation, and the familiar red letters spelled out ABBY'S
ANGUS.

"It is
with great pleasure," she intoned. "That here, on the occasion of our
thirty-fifth restaurant, we take a moment to acknowledge those . . ." The
camera angle widened. Spaulding stood up on the dais, shifting his weight from
foot to foot and picking his nose. Brie wore a white sundress the way I always
thought one ought to be worn. I chastised myself for impure thoughts and tuned
back in to the speech.

Before I could
pick up the thread, however, it happened.

With an alldible
pop, the whole sign flickered and died. And then, just as quickly, recovered
its former brilliance. Except for the G. The G stayed out. The sign now read
ABBY'S AN us. And the good-natured wink of the bull was suddenly a perverted
leer.

As for me, if
you didn't count the throbbing of my temples and the almost obscene fluttering
of my nostrils, I held it together pretty well.

What else have
you got?" he shouted through the door. I checked my drooping wallet.
"My library card." "Has it got a picture?"
"Nope."

"What good
is that?"  "Books."

I'd already
held up, and then passed under the door, my convention security ID card, my PI
license, my driver's license and my VISA and COSTCO cards. I could only hope
that eventually Mason Reese would open the door and return my identity. If he
decided to go shopping, I was in serious trouble.

"It's not
much," he complained.

"I'm not
much of a joiner."

A room-service
waiter pushed a cart up the hall in my direction. He was a handsome fellow with
dark curly hair and a wispy mustache. Both levels of the rolling cart were
covered with silver-lidded chafing dishes, which chattered slightly as he
rolled along. A designer ice bucket showed the tops of a champagne bottle and
three soft drinks, whose black screw-on tops stared back at me with green
jungle eyes. Before moving the cart behind me, the waiter stood upright. His
gold badge read Rodrigo. "Something I can help you with, sir?"

"No, but
thanks," I said.

Only his
five-star service training prevented him from asking me what in hell I was
doing there in the hall, standing in front of a door with a DO NOT DISTURB sign
hanging from the handle. As it was, he kept throwing glances over his shoulder
as he pushed the cart the length of the hall, knocked on the last door on the
left and disappeared inside.

The door to
eight-fourteen suddenly banged open on its chain. Mason Reese peered out
through the crack at me. He was a puny little guy of about fifty, with a bald
pate and narrow eyes. "I can't be too careful, you know," he said.
"I'm dealing with lunatics here."

Normally, I
would consider a statement such as this as merely stress-induced hyperbole.
Today, however, I was inclined to agree.

"I
understand," I said. "I can get hotel security up here to verify my
identity, if you want."

"Don't
bother," he said. "I have nothing to say to you."

He slid his
index and middle fingers out through the crack. I pulled my identification from
between the fingers and took my time putting them back from whence they came.
When I looked up, the door was slowly closing.

"Is any of
that story about Abigail Meyerson and the pork chop bone true?" I blurted.

The door
stopped moving and an eye reappeared. "What story?"

"That she
had it gold plated."

"She had
two of them made. One for a key chain and another that hung from the mirror of
her Mercedes. She used to pass out these little replicas. In the corporation,
they called it being 'slipped the bone.' If you were 'slipped the bone,' it
meant you were on your way up the corporate ladder."

The door eased
toward closed again.

"Meyerson
sort of indicated that she thought Jack had maybe killed his first wife. Any
truth to that?"

The door again
banged on the chain. "She was a lush. That’s why the courts gave the kids
to the father. Jack had nothing to do with it." Reese almost grinned.
"Unless you count his just being ol’ Jackeroo and driving her to it, of
course."

"What
about her kids?"

"What
about 'em?"

"Ms.
Meyerson said she heard . . ."

"That
T>ad ends' crap of hers."

"Yeah."

"Crap,"
he snapped. "She always makes it sound like Jack set 'em loose on an ice
floe or something. He paid the freight. Maybe he wasn't the paternal type.
Maybe he never laid eyes on those kids. But he saw to it that they went to good
homes. I know, because it was my job to take care of it. The girl, Sandy was
her name, went to these people in Pennsylvania. The foster parents kept in
touch with me for years. Sent me her college graduation picture. The boy,
Richard, went down south. Georgia someplace. A wealthy farm family."

"Big of
Jack."

"You've
met Jack. What do you think was best?"

I had to admit,
Mason Reese probably had a point Spending one's formative years with a guy who
referred to himself exclusively in the third person might not have constituted
a particularly sound foundation for successful citizenship.

I had slipped
my toe into the crack, so I took a deep breath while I considered my next
option. "What about all this stuff about The Meyerson Corporation spying
on him?"

"I know
nothing of that," Reese said. "I have not been in Mr. Del Fuego's
direct employ for several years now. I know he's let go the whole staff it took
us twenty years to build."

"Why'd he
do that?"

"Paranoia.
He kept weeding traitors out of the organization until there wasn't an
organization."

"Is that
what you're going to say at your news conference?"

"That
remains to be seen, now, doesn't it?" He leaned lightly against the door.

"Abby and
ol' Jackeroo have really got your ass in the wringer, haven't they?"

He sneered at
me. "The way I see it, I hold the initiative."

"How can
that be?" I scoffed. "It's your credibility that’s at stake here,
isn't it? And either way, you lose. I mean, if you claim your rating is on the
up-and-up, Meyerson will probably add your name to the court case. God only
knows what sort of damages that woman will ask for. And if you admit it was all
a gag, you become an industry embarrassment, a pariah. Hell, your airline
accounts just might sue you, too. You're damned if you do and damned if you
don't."

"The
situation is under control," he said.

"Seems
pretty volatile to me," I countered. "As I see it, just about
everybody would be better off if you took a hike."

He leaned
heavily against the door. When it failed to budge, he looked down at my foot.
"Kindly remove your foot. I have nothing further to say to you."

I kept the foot
where it was. "Jack had some questions about the death of Ms. Meyerson's
husband."

"that’s
just Jack talking through his ass as usual."

He leaned
harder on the door.

"I'm
staying here in the hotel. If anything interesting develops, feel free to give
me a call."

He pressed his
weight against the door and turned sideways so I could see the thick black automatic
that he held down along his right leg.

"I'm
prepared to defend myself," he said.

He was nervous
and apt to do something stupid. I showed him my hands. I could feel the leather
sole bending from the pressure of the steel door, so I pulled my foot out. The
door snapped shut with a rush of hot air. End of interview.

The door at the
end of the hall reopened. The waiter eyed me suspiciously as he rolled the now
empty cart back up the hall. I waited until he'd passed me and then followed
him on his way. After he rolled the cart into the elevator and turned around, I
stepped in. I stood facing the rear as the door slid shut. That always drives
'em crazy.