Body Copy - Michael Craven [84]
And that’s when it happened.
He realized that the man he’d talked to, the movie producer, Dean Latham, was not the Dean Latham in the picture with Kelly Burch.
That robe-wearing washed-up movie producer was innocent. He had told Tremaine the truth. He’d never met Kelly Burch and he’d never met Roger Gale. Tremaine owed him an apology, and he’d give him one.
Dean Latham, the movie producer, did, however, share his name with the man in the picture, the man with the long black hair and the glasses, Kelly Burch’s lover.
But it was by sheer coincidence. The Dean Latham in the picture was a different Dean Latham. The Dean Latham Tremaine had met had absolutely nothing to do with the case.
Yes, Tremaine thought, the Dean Latham in the picture was someone else. Someone who was, without question, entirely vital to the case he’d been struggling with.
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Michael Craven
Tremaine got a feeling in his stomach, his subconscious mind connecting with his conscious mind. His logical attack on the case colliding with his instincts.
And he realized that the girl from the karate studio, the sex performer, hadn’t lied to him either. She’d never seen Roger Gale before. That was the truth. In fact, Tremaine realized, Roger Gale had never even been to the karate studio. No, Tyler Wilkes was mistaken. Tyler thought he’d seen Roger Gale go in the karate studio, but he was wrong.
Roger Gale had gone somewhere else.
Tremaine focused on the name Dean Latham, examining it closely. Then, staring at the name in his mind, the letters in Dean Latham’s name began to float independently of each other. Tremaine’s eyes were pointed at random things on his kitchen counter, but what he saw was the name Dean Latham etched in his imagination. The letters danced around and began to take different positions. Began to re-order themselves to form something new. Tremaine letting his mind go, letting it work on its own, as he’d done so many times working that silly Jumble word game.
Tremaine thought about the words, the name, Dean Latham. The letters began laying themselves down into new creations.
First he saw: dean latham.
And then he saw: dea lantham.
And then he saw: the lad mana.
And then he saw something else, something that made him shake his head and even smile. And he grabbed a pencil and a piece of paper and he wrote what he saw down. Tremaine knew, as he wrote it, the identity of the man in the picture with Kelly Burch, the man who had written her 264
B O D Y C O P Y
love letters. A man who had gone to great lengths to disguise his appearance. A man who hadn’t gone to a karate studio but had gone next door to a wig store, Expert Wigs, to buy himself a long black wig. That way, disguised, he could be across a table at a crowded restaurant with Kelly Burch, the beautiful young girl he loved. Yes, the man in the picture had even changed his name so when he was with her he could completely become someone else. But he hadn’t chosen just any name. No. He’d made the perfect name using only the letters of a title that described him to a tee. He’d left a clue. Of course he had, he was too creative and clever not to.
This is what Donald Tremaine wrote down out of the letters in the name Dean Latham: the l.a. ad man.
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Tremaine got in the Cutlass instantly.
He called Jack Sawyer as he drove toward Gale/
Parker.
“You up, Jack?”
“What do you mean? I’m old, I wake up at three in the morning.”
It was just 6:00 a.m., but Jack Sawyer, the Salty Dog, was alive and kicking, thankfully. Tremaine asked him if he could meet him at Gale/Parker not in an hour, not in a half hour, but as soon as possible, right now, preferably.
Sawyer, the good man that he was, said, “absolutely.”
At the steps leading to the Gale/Parker reception area, open for business, as always, Tremaine stood there waiting for Sawyer. He saw Sawyer pulling in, looking alive in his pickup at this early hour.
B O D Y C O P Y
As Sawyer approached, he said, “You P.I.s keep funny hours. Luckily, so do old advertising farts.”
“Thank you for doing