Terrence bound my wrists with a nylon zip-tie. They dragged me to my feet and took a firm grip of each of my shoulders respectively, but not respectfully.

  I still had my legs and feet free, but I didn’t like my odds if I tried something fantastical.

  Fogerty moved in on me. His face full of malice, his eyes as dead as any stone-cold killer.

  When I get really scared or nervous, I tend to talk a lot, so I started in.

  “All those roses you gave Rachel after you violated her. What the hell was that about?”

  He was up close and personal now. His face had a nasty scowl on it, beads of sweat poured from beneath his hairline. The first shot was a right uppercut that slashed deep into my solar plexus, followed by a crossing left to my ribs.

  I cried out, keeled over. Gasped for breath. Waldo and Terrence kept a grip on my shoulders and pulled me back up straight.

  Fogerty knew what he was doing. He probably had his own boxing coach.

  He gripped my chin in his hands and forced me to look directly into his eyes.

  “Have you been talking to Speed?” he hissed. “You’re as stupid as that drugged-out loser. Do you want money, too?”

  The mention of Speed rocked me as much as his fists had. I tried to wrap my mind around the fact that he knew Sarah’s agent and had been involved with him. That money was involved. But Fogerty kept talking and throwing me off balance.

  “You have a young lady in your life now. And a woman friend. More than a friend. I believe she is in Vietnam at the moment, on assignment. You miss her. Taking care of the little girl is hard in your line of work. But you don’t mind. You’ve come to care for her.”

  Staring at me, he delivered another rocking punch to my midsection. I heard an odd screeching sound, followed by a guttural grunt as the boys held me stiff and steady.

  “Your family, such as it is. You can’t be too careful. Life is treacherous. One wrong move and those closest to you might disappear. Frankie, that’s her name, right? And Alexandra. Such a pretty name. Such a pretty woman. It would be terrible to have that face harmed. Ruined.”

  Another shot from his left hand, this one just beneath my ribcage, the fist searching for my kidney. I grunted, then felt sick, about to vomit.

  Fogerty stepped away and waited.

  It might have been a minute, perhaps longer, before I felt like I might not lose my insides. Fogerty moved closer again.

  I closed my eyes and mumbled. “I still don’t get the roses. Why did you send them to Sarah the day she was shot? I can’t…figure it out and…”

  Another shot to my stomach silenced me, followed by two more. From what I can remember, he just kept punching. In the back of my mind, I wondered, or felt some relief that he wasn’t going after my face.

  If I survived, I’d still be pretty.

  Soon though, I felt like nothing more than a worn-out punching bag, and sometime after that, I was no longer aware of anything at all.

  Thirty-Two

  I don’t know how they got me out of the Palazzo undetected, but when I woke, I was sitting, or rather, leaning, behind the wheel of Marsh’s Ford Mustang in the middle of nowhere.

  It took me a while to figure out who I was, let alone where. My vision blurred, my brain foggy, my tongue parched and foul with stink.

  The passenger seat had dried vomit all over it.

  There was a note taped to the steering wheel.

  According to the old analog car clock, it was just after nine p.m.

  The center of my body felt like it housed a demon witch’s black cauldron of boiling sulfurous oils.

  My ribs ached, vortices of fiery pain.

  My head throbbed like the inside of Max Weinberg’s drum kit.

  Other than that, I felt pretty good.

  I sat there breathing in and out. Taking an inventory of my whole body. There didn’t seem to be any blood, at least externally. It was possible that I was leaking inside, and that it would kill me sooner or later.

  The attack had been brutally focused to exact the most pain without a trace of evidence that it had ever happened.

  When I felt I could stomach it, I tore the note from the steering wheel and brought it up close to my eyes. It was typed in large print on plain white paper.

  Remember. Your loved ones.

  Stay out of Vegas for a while.

  Out of the Palazzo forever.

  I opened the car door, angled my body carefully until I was able to place a foot on the unmaintained dirt road on which the car was parked.

  I hunched over, felt like I was going to throw up again, dry heaved a couple of times before the gag reflex quieted.

  I closed my eyes and steadied myself.

  I reached up and grabbed the top of the door, hauling myself up onto my feet. My knees wavered, threatening to collapse. I steadied myself against the car until my head stopped swimming.

  I looked around.

  In the distance, beneath a couple of hazy street lights, I glimpsed the highway.

  Around me, the shadows of mesquite bushes and cactus and dead Joshua trees as far as the eye could see.

  I turned three-hundred-sixty degrees and spotted the towering spires of Las Vegas hotels perhaps ten miles away.

  I stumbled around to the trunk and found a couple of rags. I opened the passenger side door and cleaned up the vomit as best I could, stifling the urge, the gag reflex, to add to the mess. Marsh would not be a happy man. I’d blame it on Fogerty and let nature take its course.

  I tossed the rags over my shoulder and got back in the car. It still stunk but so did I.

  The bumpy unpaved road did a number on my roiling stomach. When I hit 95, I turned south back toward Vegas. I didn’t intend to violate Fogerty’s restrictions quite so soon, but I needed a drink of water and knew it would be closer in this direction than back north and home.

  When I had sated my thirst, I’d head back to San Francisco. I had a lot to think about and ten lonely dark hours to do it in.

  Thirty-Three

  I got back to Alexandra’s place a couple of hours after Frankie caught the school bus. I called Meiying and verified that nothing but the normal had occurred while I was gone.

  Dao took the phone. “Max, have you heard anymore from Takeshi? Marsh said not to worry, but he is gone.”

  I recounted my meeting with George Liu and his promise to take care of his nephew.

  When I finished, Dao didn’t respond, and I listened to him breathing quietly for a while. “I understand you’re still worried. I don’t blame you. I’m going to follow up with Liu today and make sure Takeshi isn’t a threat. Marsh has posted men to watch over you.”

  Still silence.

  “If it makes you feel better, why don’t you set sail? Waters are calm. Take the boat out to the Farallones and anchor offshore. Takeshi won’t be able to find you there. Call me in the morning. I’ll let you know what Liu says.”

  “Okay, Max. Maybe so.”

  The house Speed Weed rented off Taraval in the Sunset District was attached on both sides, a typical row house, an amalgam of Spanish Colonial and Craftsmen style, blending the worst elements of each. It was in a state of disrepair and badly needed a paint job.

  I hoped Speed had gotten a break on rent. Only in California could a simple, relatively small house in a nondescript neighborhood be worth more than a million dollars.

  Late morning, there was no one around. The front door was tucked in an alcove surrounded by worn brick. Stone planters with stale, dry dirt and no plants filled the small space.

  I removed the lock pick set I’d retrieved from my boat and used it to open the pin and tumbler lock with the greatest of ease.

  Inside it was cold, dusty, and unkempt. Like most bachelors, Speed wasn’t a neatnik.

  It was a small house, two bedrooms and a single bath. The furnishings were sparse. A couch and chair in the living room fronting a glass topped table with magazines, mostly music-related, and newspapers strewn across its surface. A newish flat screen TV.

  The walls were naked, save for a large unframed painting of Duke Ellington and his big band wailing away that hung in the center of the living room wall.

  The air in the house was stale, sweetly-sour, and slightly antiseptic smelling. Perhaps the remains of the medical examiner’s visit to Speed’s dead body.

  The kitchen was a tiny room with all the necessities and a small breakfast counter. The countertops were Formica, in a pattern popular in the 1960s.

  Dishes were piled in the sink, the stains of unfinished meals still stuck to their surfaces. The refrigerator held three beers, a hunk of cheese, and a carton of stale milk. It smelled of rotting bananas from the three blackened specimens I found in the produce compartment.

  The bedroom contained an unmade queen-sized bed, a large bureau, a bedside table with a reading lamp, a copy of Atlas Shrugged, and a hairbrush. A Fender Stratocaster stood propped in a corner of the room next to a small amp. A Gibson acoustic guitar leaned against the end of the bureau.

  Not a surprise that an agent, a talent manager, would be a musician. Oftentimes, it’s a way to keep yourself in the game that you love so much.

  I remembered my meeting with Speed at the casino, the shell of the man I found there. I tried to think of him in younger days when he might have loved music and played in a series of unsuccessful rock ‘n roll bands.

  Bo and I had been there, done that. I felt little nostalgia for it.

  My mind wandered back to my mission. The bedroom was the place to start my search, so that’s what I did.

  I was still feeling pretty terrible, like I’d been hitched to a wild horse and dragged for long dusty miles on a gravel road. I felt like I was lumbering rather than walking. It took me almost an hour, with breaks to sit down and catch my breath, to do a thorough exploration of every nook and cranny of the bedroom and its small closet.

  But I didn’t find what I was looking for until I went to the kitchen for a glass of water. As I was sipping and looking around, I decided to explore right where I was.

  I opened all the cabinets and searched the pantry. I opened the drawers beneath the counters and found nothing but what you’d expect to find: silverware, pots and pans, towels, plastic plates.

  I stood up, felt a sharp pain in my side, grimaced, gripped my arms around my waist. I breathed in and sighed and dreamed of my eventual return to Las Vegas and my next meeting with William Fogerty.

  I noticed the small cabinet above the refrigerator and reached up high. Feeling the pull on my sore ribs, wincing, I grasped the handle and drew the door open. At first it looked empty save for a dusty black exhaust pipe running near the top.

  I was about to close ‘er up when I noticed the edge of a manila folder laying on the bottom of the cabinet. I touched it with the tips of my fingers, drawing them toward me, and inched the folder out. I snatched it and sat down on the stool at the counter.

  I took another sip of water and opened the folder.

  What was in that folder didn’t answer all the remaining questions I had.

  But it surely satisfied most of them.

  Thirty-Four

  As I was driving back to Alexandra’s house, Phoebe called to tell me that Sarah was out of her coma. She told me that Rachel had slept overnight at the hospital and was with her still.

  I banked the bike to the curb for a few moments to think about my approach to the two women. I’d planned on confronting Rachel alone later that day, but questioning the two of them together, although uncomfortable, was even better.

  I did a one eighty on my bike and headed back toward Highway 101 and San Francisco General Hospital.

  Once again, I found myself sitting at the foot of Sarah’s bed.

  But this time, it was different as the patient was awake and alert. Rachel sat next to her on the mattress, holding her hand.

  I’d learned that the doctors had started weaning her off the drugs inducing the coma a couple of days ago, and she’d come out of it the previous afternoon.

  She looked a bit spacey and spoke slowly, pronouncing each syllable distinctly, as if she were practicing a new language. Still, she seemed coherent, bright, and happy to be back in this world.

  I remembered the night I first saw her, the stunning singer lighting up a room full of adoring fans. I’d become one of them by the end of the first song.

  I couldn’t wait to hear her sing again.

  “Sorry for showing up unannounced, but as soon as Phoebe told me you were awake, I knew I had to come and see the both of you. It’s very important that we talk now.”

  Rachel nodded, her gaze unfocused. Sarah smiled weakly and said, “It’s okay, Mr. Plank. Rachel told me how you reacted that night, how you tried to help. And how you’ve been working on solving the mystery ever since.”

  “It’s been a big day. You need to rest,” Rachel insisted. She turned to me and said, “What’s so important? Have you found out who did this to Sarah?”

  I ignored the slight edge of irritation in her voice, attributed it to her wanting Sarah to herself, finally after all this time.

  “I went to see your father.”

  Her shock registered with a sharp intake of breath.

  “God…what…why…you never said…”

  “After what you told me, I didn’t want to upset you further. I didn’t know if I’d actually get to see him. Or if he’d even talk to me.”

  Sarah patted Rachel’s thigh, tightening the grip on her fingers. “It’s okay, Rach. He has no power over you anymore. Let’s hear what Mr. Plank has to say.”

  Rachel stared at their conjoined hands. Sarah lifted her chin, looked gently into her eyes. “It’s going to be okay.”

  Rachel nodded. Sarah looked up at me. “Go ahead.”

  Rachel kept her eyes everywhere but on me. I couldn’t blame her. It must have felt like the monster that had ruined her childhood was back in the same room with her.

  I summarized my time in the Chairman’s suite. I didn’t dwell on my being used as a punching bag. I didn’t go into great detail about his callous attitude toward Mrs. Wambaugh and Rachel or his indifference to Christopher’s suicide.

  I did emphasize the fact that, despite his initial denials, he knew a lot about what had gone on here in San Francisco in the past couple of weeks. That it seemed a fair guess that he was involved in Sarah’s shooting and perhaps even in Speed Weed’s overdose. When she heard that, Rachel groaned and buried her face in Sarah’s shoulder.

  It was torture for Rachel to listen. By the time I finished, she seemed more like a recovering victim than Sarah did. She kept her face hidden in the crook of her friend’s shoulder.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  She didn’t acknowledge my words, just stayed nestled in the comfort of Sarah’s arms. Silent tears streamed down her cheeks.

  I paused, watching the two of them, feeling like something was being withheld. Something left unsaid.

  “I wanted to ask you both, again, about the roses. I talked to your father about them but got nowhere. I accused him of sending them to Sarah.”

  I had come to believe that the roses might be the key to solving the whole affair, like the sled in Citizen Kane. The ultimate mystery, the unknowable source, the unsolvable riddle.

  The roses were the reason I’d insisted on talking to the both of them sooner rather than later.

  “Sarah, I don’t know why you don’t like roses. And Rachel, you haven’t really explained that either. But the number, twenty, still mystifies me. It has to mean something, and Rachel, I have a feeling that you’re the only one, other than your father, who knows what that meaning is.”

  Now the tears were no longer silent. She was sobbing. Sarah kissed her hair and murmured, “Rach, honey, it’s okay. He can’t hurt you now. No one can. It’s time, sweetheart. You have to let go of it now. Tell him. Tell him all of it.”

  Rachel cried, out, “I can’t!. I just…can’t. It’s…too dirty. No one will ever forgive…” She started sobbing uncontrollably again, and I sat there listening to her wail, trying to speak, sounding like a penitent speaking in tongues. I wondered what other secret she could have more terrible than her father’s sexual violation of her. I felt ashamed of myself for sitting there and listening.

  When she finally managed to calm herself, she angled her face up and looked into Sarah’s eyes. “It killed him. I killed him, Rach.”

  “No. No, you didn’t, honey. If anybody killed him, it was your father.”

  Rachel let out a long, weary breath, settled back down onto Sarah’s chest for a moment, then struggled up into a sitting position and stared down at her fingers, locked in mortal combat with each other, and began to speak. “The roses do mean something. The first time my father came to my bedroom, I was nine years old. The next morning there was a single red rose on my pillow. The following week, he visited me again in the middle of the night. The next morning, there were two roses nestled beside me. That night, while he was…touching me, I started crying and I couldn’t stop. Finally, he left me. So after the second time, it was months before he returned. Not until after my tenth birthday…”

  She sat there talking in a flat monotone voice, distanced from her words, staring over my shoulder. I could feel my heart thumping against my chest, a queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach.

  “…he returned and left me that third rose. For the next three years, until he left us, he continued to add a rose to mark each…act. The last time, when I was thirteen, I found nineteen roses laying on the bed beside me. I hated them. They made me sick, just like he did. Each time, I’d get up, full of shame and guilt, sneak out of the house, and throw them in the woods behind our backyard so no one else would ever see them. To this day, I can’t imagine why he did that. It seemed as bad as him touching me, entering me. It still does.

  “When Sarah told me she got those twenty roses, I almost collapsed on the spot. I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t know what it meant. I assumed they came from my father, but I didn’t know why. Why now? I hadn’t told Sarah about the roses yet. I knew of her dislike for them. It was funny. It made me think we were somehow meant for each other. Silly, eh? But her disdain was normal, or, not really normal, she didn’t like the look or smell. She didn’t like association with love and Valentine’s day, the phony marketing around it. She hated that little jeweler’s ad, every kiss begins with K.” She paused, couldn’t help a grim half-smile and glance at Sarah, who forced a smile back at her.

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21