Body Copy - Michael Craven [61]
Look at our guests, I mean.”
Tremaine said, “You’ve never seen this man? Don’t lie to me.”
“If you’re a cop,” she said, “why don’t you shut us down? If it’s so important that you find these guys, what difference does it make to you if you take us down in the process?”
“Like you said,” Tremaine said, holding up the picture of Roger Gale. “Your customers come back. We want him to come back.”
“I don’t think he’s ever come in.”
“We didn’t know that. Now we do.”
“So now that you know that, are we going to get shut down?”
“Not if you keep your mouth shut.”
“About what?” she said. “Our operation or you jumping in my car?”
“Both,” Tremaine said. And he opened the door to the Explorer and got out.
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Tremaine was on the roof of his trailer in Malibu, a beautiful night to be on the roof of a trailer in Malibu. How did all of this stuff connect? His conscious mind wasn’t helping him. Neither was his subconscious mind. He picked up Lyle and put him in his lap. Lyle, being agree-able tonight, not bickering over being moved.
“Who’s telling me the truth, Lyle? And, Lyle, who’s lying?”
Tyler Wilkes wasn’t lying, not under the pressure they put him under. He saw Roger Gale go in that karate studio. Tremaine thought, maybe, just maybe, Roger Gale had gone in there just to use the bathroom, like I had pretended to do. Maybe Gale had just innocently gone into the studio, and Tyler Wilkes reaped the fruits of that ac-B O D Y C O P Y
cident and got himself a peep show or two. Or maybe Gale just went in once or twice for the experience, then never went back. And the girl had missed him.
Or was the girl in the Explorer lying? Was she protecting her boss, her pimp? That guy was tough, intense, Tremaine could see that, it was obvious. Maybe she would lie, even to a guy she thought was a cop, just to protect him. Tremaine thought, were they involved somehow with Roger Gale? But if Gale had gone in there and just seen a few shows, and the karate studio people weren’t involved with him in any other way, why would she lie about it?
She didn’t lie about Tyler. She’d come right out and said, yeah, that guy’s been in here a few times. But, but, was she cool enough under pressure to admit to having seen Tyler Wilkes, but not admit to having seen Roger Gale, if she had indeed seen Roger Gale?
Hmm, Tremaine thought, Lyle on his lap, the beautiful Malibu sky black and dotted with stars above his head.
What do I know? What do I really know? That Roger Gale said he had an affair but he didn’t. And that he’d gone into a karate studio in downtown Los Angeles and may or may not have seen a sex show. Tremaine sat there, silent, Lyle, a hot sleeping mound on his lap, breathing, up and down, up and down.
“What’s going on here, Lyle?”
Lyle didn’t answer.
Tremaine’s cell rang, he looked at it, didn’t recognize the number on the caller ID.
“Tremaine,” he said.
“Donald, it’s Heather,” the voice said.
Heather? Oh, Drop Dead Heather. Tremaine thought, 193
Michael Craven
shit, how is it possible that I keep forgetting to call this girl?
Heather said, “We had a deal.”
Tremaine thought, I’m not making this mistake again, and said, “You’re right. What are you doing right now?”
“Driving home from work.”
Tremaine said, “Should we meet at Casa Del Mar, in Santa Monica? Half-hour or so?”
“Perfect,” Heather said. “I can walk there from my apartment.”
“See you soon.”
And when Tremaine walked in to the big, sprawling hotel bar with big windows out to the beach, he did see Heather, immediately, standing at the bar, and he thought, man, Drop Dead Heather is truly the perfect name. She’s a killer, an assassin, big white teeth smiling at him as he approached.
He remembered her now approaching him that day in the parking lot. Walking toward him. The long blonde hair, the body . . . The