One Way or Another(48)
Marco flung a leg over the bike and wondered what to do next. But then the guy turned round. He walked quickly back, stood in front of Marco, put his face in his.
“Listen, prick,” he said in a low, menacing voice, dark glasses off again, eyes boring into Marco’s. “Angie was decent. All right? She helped my girlfriend one night after we’d had a bit of a … well, a fight. Angie took her to the ER, got her patched up. Listen, I ain’t proud of that and I’m on probation with my girl not to do it again, but I’ll tell you, Angie missed a night at her job, lost wages to take care of my girl. Anything I could do to repay that, y’know I would. But I don’t know nuthin’ about Angie being on yachts. Only thing I know is she’d met a rich guy and he’d come a’ courtin’, flowers, expensive gifts, pretty things like a gold chain necklace I knew musta cost … maybe that’s the guy you need to question. Not me.”
He turned quickly again and made to walk away. “Hey,” Marco called after him. He looked back over his shoulder.
“Y’know the rich guy’s name?”
He shrugged. “Only ever heard the first name, foreign sounding. Angie was discreet about her men, trust me on that. She was a good girl,” he added, sounding so sincerely saddened Marco felt for him.
He got back on his orange bike and pedaled swiftly through the mass of traffic, honked at on every side by irate drivers who barely missed him as they swerved lanes. He was glad he was wearing the crash helmet, though he felt a bit like Darth Vader. He stopped outside Houlihan’s Steak and Crab House. The neon sign flickered up and down, red and blue, blue and red, then across in a sparkle of white light. “Houlihan’s Famous.”
Well, famous it might be, but he had never heard of it and, what’s more, it was not a place he would have frequented. Inspecting it from outside, Marco got the impression it was the kind of expensive joint that would have a very low-lit interior, even at noon, with red, fake leather booths in the bar and stiff white tablecloths in the restaurant, and enough flowers to asphyxiate a man. Quite turned him off his glass of vodka tonic with a wedge of lime, which is what he ordered when he went in there.
He leaned up against the bar, helmet on the counter in front of him, checking out the clientele, in suits, ties unknotted after work, propped on their elbows, half turned so they could check out the girls who clustered at the other end and who were gossiping in girl-speak about the men while giving them the eye. The place was a pickup joint all right, though the menu was predictably expensive. Two male bartenders were keeping busy shaking cosmos and margaritas while a couple of girls in white shirts, black pencil skirts, and heels trotted around, trays aloft, looking for customers.
The greeter at the door, though, was a man. Marco sipped his vodka tonic, making it last since he was not there for the booze but on a mission and besides, he was “driving.” He watched the door, waiting to see if anyone had taken over Angie’s role, but there was only the guy: black, smartly dressed, well-spoken, and very much in charge.
Finally, Marco went over. “I can see you’re busy but I need to ask about Angie Morse.”
The guy threw him a sideways glance as he handed menus to a waiting couple. “Don’t ask,” he said shortly.
“So, okay, I’m not asking,” Marco said. “I’m just hoping you’re telling, because Angie might have been murdered.”
The guy, whose name tag said he was Phil, took a white handkerchief from his breast pocket and mopped his suddenly sweaty brow. “Listen, Angie is a nice girl, works hard, does her job well. I’m real sorry but I don’t know much more than that about her. She keeps to herself. A very private kinda young woman. Very nice. And if she’s really … I’m sorry … about all that, what happened … Now, if you’ll excuse me…” He went back to his customers and Marco went back to his vodka tonic.
He was getting nowhere fast. Nobody knew anything personal about Angie. Or if they did, they were not telling.
33
Lucy was thinking that if she was going to have to mess about helping Martha work out how to restructure Ahmet’s awful house, she might as well nail him on the elusive movie script he’d mentioned. More than mentioned—promised, in fact, though she did have the uneasy feeling that something might be expected in exchange for that promise. Well, shoot, he’d soon find out she wasn’t that kind of girl, even if she did accept a glass of champagne, dinner even, from a complete stranger. That was a one-off. A deal made out of necessity. Now, all she could think of was the pizza guy. She had dialed the pizza place, described him to the girl who answered with a knowing laugh and said of course that would be Phillip Kurtiz the Third.
“The third of what?” Lucy asked.
“In line of succession.” The girl paused, then added, “To Kurtiz Food Products, of Chicago, Illinois.”
“Oh. Right.” Lucy had never heard of them but to her he certainly was not a Marks & Spencer, so it didn’t count. Besides, if he was rich and all, why was he delivering pizzas so he could pay his Oxford fees? The girl must be wrong.
“Lucy!” Martha’s voice had an edge to it. Lucy snapped to attention.
“Here, take my iPad and make notes when I talk. We’re going to go room by room, so this will take some time.”
Already bored, Lucy did as she was told, trailing from one overstuffed dark room to another overstuffed dark room, wondering why nobody had thought to bring light into the place. Even the kitchen, where a solitary chef who said he was from Tunisia stood at a gray marble counter slicing out-of-season bright yellow papaya and fresh figs into a perfectly beautiful turquoise bowl that Martha stopped to admire.