Slow Burn (17 page)

He nodded.
"You've never met her before?" "Never."

Jed took a deep
breath. "If they had any intention of dealing, they wouldn't have sent
her. They're gonna do this by the numbers."

"Then, as
you said, it's damage control."

Damage control
meant that we told them as little as humanly possible- That we had to protect
against information erosion. We wouldn't specifically he about anything, except
what it was we remembered. Nobody can prove what it is a person does or does
not remember. We would answer their questions in as succinct and specific a
manner as possible, carefully avoiding telling them anything more than what
they asked. Jed would jump in and take any questions that he thought required his
attention. When in doubt, we'd do the old Ollie North Tango: To the best of my
recollection . . .

When the authorities
decide they want to get serious, it's best to have an ace in the hole. It's no
skin off their noses one way or the other whether you go home or you go to
jail. Either way, they go home and eat their young. Like everything else, it's
just a system of trade-offs. If you expect them to look the other way on your
transgressions, you damn well better have something good to trade.

Jed walked to the
door and invited our tormentors back into the room. Lobdell got the
stenographer settled and then picked up where Lawrence had left off. "Were
you operating as a private investigator during your stay here at the
hotel?"

"Yes."

"By whom
were you employed?" "Sir Geoffrey Miles." The pair exchanged a
short glance. "With a J or a G?" Lawrence asked. I spelled it out for
them.

"Where
will we find this gentleman?" Lobdell asked. "Room sixteen
hundred."

Lobdell excused
himself and stepped out in the hall for a moment. Lawrence waited for him to
return and get settled before she asked, "What were you hired to do?"

"Security."

"For
whom?" "What," I said.

"What
what?" Lawrence tried.

"I was
handling security for a what, not a who."

They waited. So
did I.

"Well?"
Lobdell said.

"Well
what?"

"Which
what were you handling security for?" "The convention that’s going on
over in the convention center." "The foodfest," Lobdell said.

"Le
Cuisine Internationale," I gave it my best Pepe Le Pew French accent.

"What,
specifically, were you hired to do?" Lawrence asked.

Jed threw me a
little nod, saying that I should give them this part of the story, so I did. I
ran down the whole Meyerson, Del Fuego, Reese soap opera. I told them how I'd
interviewed the parties.

Lawrence
interrupted once. As I finished
describing my interview with Reese, she said. "So, Mr. Waterman, you're
saying that you didn't enter Mr. Reese's room?"

I looked to
Jed. "Yes," I said. "that’s right." And then I told them
about Rodrigo, the room-service waiter who'd seen me in the hall.

"I have a
few questions," Lobdell announced. Turned out, so did Ms. Lawrence. They
picked at the story like fussy vultures, tearing off one bite-sized nibble at a
time before moving on to the next. It took an hour to go back over the story to
their satisfaction. I was losing my patience.

"Go
on," she said.

I explained
about how, the next morning, I'd kept track of their comings and goings. About
stomping around boarding stables and cattle yards all afternoon and returning
to the hotel.

"And what
time did you get back here?" Lobdell asked. "I just told you that.
Right before six."

 "And
there was a message."

"Yes."

"From?"

"Mason
Reese."

Lawrence
was getting a little antsy, too.
"Survey says . . ."

"He said I
should give him a call." "And you did," the cop prompted.
"Yeah, but I got no answer."

They were good.
They were able to take complex events and reduce them to a series of single
actions which could then be either verified and dismissed or disputed and
investigated. One halten step at a time, they documented me from my room to the
door of eight-fourteen.

"I elbowed
the door open," I said.

"But you
didn't go in," Lawrence said immediately.

If I answered,
the jig was up, so I, treated it as a statement and buttoned my lip.

"Is that
correct?" Lobdell asked.

"Is what
correct?"

"That you
did not enter Mr. Reese's room, after you pushed open the door." "I
didn't say that."

She paged
backward in her notebook. "You certainly did."

Jed took over.
"In the citation for which you are searching, Ms. Lawrence, you asked Mr.
Waterman, in the context of his interview with Mr. Reese, if he had entered Mr.
Reese's room. You did not ask him if he had entered Mr. Reese's room at any
time."

"That's
pathetic," the sergeant snapped.

"Actually,
it's poor grammar," I suggested.

Lobdell kept
picking. "After receiving the message, after going downstairs, after
pushing open the door, did you enter Mr. Reese's room?"

"Yes."

It took another
half hour to cover the three minutes I'd spent in the room. When I'd finished,
Jed said, "My client was concerned for the well-being of Mr. Reese. He was
aware of the animosity inherent in the dispute between Mr. Del Fuego and Mrs.
Meyerson and was concerned for Mason Reese's safety."

Lobdell sneered
at us. "So it was as a public-spirited citizen that Mr. Waterman
unlawfully entered and disturbed a crime scene."

"Would
that we had more of his ilk," Jed said.

"What he
said," I added.

"What sort
of gun did Mr. Reese have?" Lawrence asked. "A black automatic."

"Just a
black automatic. That's the best you can do?" Lobdell prompted. "Most
of it was in his hand."

"And he
brandished this weapon?" Lawrence persisted.

"No.
'Brandished' is too strong a word. It makes it sound like he waved it at me. He
just let me know he had it."

Lobdell jumped
back in. "When you entered the room in your capacity as concerned citizen,
was the gun there?"

"Not that
I saw."

Lawrence
again. "Do you own a handgun, Mr.
Waterman?" "Two."

"Where are
those weapons at this time?"

I'd left them
locked in the trunk of my car, but there was no chance they were still there.
By now, the cops had long since been through my room and my car. These two were
fishing for lies.

"I'm
betting you've got them," I said. "Make sure you don't miss the
licenses. Those are in the glove DOX."

"And
immediately after exiting the room is when you assaulted Mr. Kenny?"
Lobdell said.

"Immediately
after exiting the room is when I defended myself from an unprovoked attack by
Mr. Kenny."

"What
reason would Mr. Kenny have for assaulting you?"

"Yesterday
I broke his thumb."

They looked
bewildered, so I told them the story. When I'd finished, Lawrence said,
"Even granting that your version of the incident is accurate"—her
tone indicated that hogs would sing opera first—"there would appear to be
very little difference between the impropriety of Mr. Kenny's actions and that
of your own."

"The
difference, Ms. Lawrence, is that I'm a professional thug and Lance is not. A
professional would never use any more force than is necessary. Nothing could be
dumber. That kid just wanted to show off for his buddy. Unfortunately for him,
amateurs operate at their own risk. That’s all there is to it."

"And when
he saw you in the hall, he summarily assaulted you? Is that what you're selling
us, Mr. Waterman?" Lobdell again.

"Sure
is." Before he could speak, I said, "Try his partner. A guy named
Lincoln Aimes. See what he has to say. I rate him as a pretty good kid. He'll
stick up for his buddy at first, but if you press him, I'll bet he'll tell you
the truth."

Lobdell was
losing his patience. "If if s all right with you, Waterman, we'll stage
our own investigation. If I had my way, you and the rest of these clowns would
already be downtown."

As they
scribbled in their pads, the door opened and one of my elbow uniforms came in
with a folded piece of notebook paper, which he set down next to Sergeant
Lobdell. Lobdell finished his scribbling and then picked up the note. I watched
as his eyes moved over and down the lines and thought I detected a slight smile
hiding in his thin lips.

He leaned over
and whispered in the woman's ear, and then they agreed on something. "Mr.
Waterman, in the matter of recording the comings and goings of the principals,
did you act alone or did you employ the help of others?"

He had me in a vice.
Was the note from the blue-suited Lieutenant Driscoll, telling him of my ploy
to get rid of George? That I could deal with. Or did they actually have George?
If I outright lied and they had George in custody, I'd be guilty of
obstruction. Time to Ollie.

"I hired a
guy."

"What
guy?"

"A guy
named George."

"Does this
George have a last name?"

"Probably,
but I don't know it."

"You don't
know his last name?"

"He's an
old friend of my father's. I've known him all my life. He's always just been my
uncle George. That's how I think of him."

Lobdell jerked
a thumb in the direction of the hall, and the cop hustled out. "Perhaps we
can help," Lobdell said.

His white hair
hung down in front of his face, but with his arms handcuffed behind him, George
couldn't do anything about it.

Lobdell
addressed him. "Mr. Waterman says your name is George but that he can't
remember your last name. Is your name George?"

"Maybe it
is. Maybe it ain't," George said.

"I'd like
to speak to my client privately," Jed said.

"You
already did," Lawrence objected.

"This
gentleman is also my client."

"My
ass," said Lobdell.

"The
gentleman's name is George Paris, and if you will check the county court
records, you will find that I have represented Mr. Paris in a number of matters
both criminal and civil. You will, as a matter of fact, find that I am Mr.
Pafis's attorney of record, and as much as I hate to repeat myself, I want to
talk to my client alone."

Before Lawrence could speak, Lobdell jumped to his feet. "And you shall, Mr. James. Just as
soon as we get these gentlemen booked into the King County Correction Facility,
you will be afforded ample opportunity to confer with either or both of your
clients."

I could see
that Lawrence had more questions, but didn't want to make a scene. She took the
professional approach.

"Good
evening, gentlemen." Gathering her gear into a pile, she prepared to make
her exit. "I expect we'll be seeing one another again in the
morning." "Count on it," said Jed.

Lawrence
cleared her throat. "And, ah, Mr.
Waterman . . ." She lifted my PI license from the pile of documents before
her and waved it in the air. "Until this matter is satisfactorily
resolved, the county is pulling your PI ticket, retaining custody of your
handguns and revoking your 'right to carry' permits. Consider yourself to be at
least temporarily out of the private eye business. Good evening,
gentlemen."

If you go to
the King County lockup, you spend at least six hours. No matter if your mom is
standing there with the bail money clutched in her little hand when they bring
you in. Whether it's littering or larceny, mopery or murder, you still spend at
least six hours. King County doesn't get reimbursed by the state for stays of
less than six hours. Need I say more?

They drove us
singly and then locked us up together. Go figure. After separating us from our
belts and shoes, and taking a couple of those glam photos with the handy number
on the bottom, they left us in a small cell with a black telephone on the wall.

The turnkey was
a pear-shaped guy on the verge of retirement. His bald head gleamed like an egg
in the overhead lights, and his two-tone brown uniform seemed in danger of
being rendered asunder by the onslaught of his burgeoning body as he waddled us
along the corridor.

"Make your
calls," he said, leaving us alone.

"Where are
Frank and Judy?" I asked as soon as he was gone.

"They beat
it. I give them the high sign first time I come down from the eighth, after I
seen all them damn cops."

I clapped
George on his bony shoulder. "Good man. How much info did you have in your
notebook? Did you write down where everybody went today?"