Spares - Michael Marshall Smith [45]
“He tried,” I said. “We both did. You just managed to get me off the board in time.”
“I, of course, have no idea what you’re referring to.”
I couldn’t prove it, but I knew he understood exactly what I was talking about, and if I’d had my gun at that moment his head would have been spattered across his yellow walls. Maybe this thought was visible from the outside. One of the guys round the pool stood up. He didn’t come any closer, but he was letting me know he was taking a keener interest in the conversation. He was leaner than the others, and looked both dangerous and familiar.
“Jaz Garcia, isn’t it?” I asked, winking at him. “You quit poking underage girls, or does Johnny just buy them in for you now?” One of the women in the pool looked up. She didn’t look illegal, and was probably just surprised to realize she was servicing a statch rapist. Or maybe not. Maybe it gave her a thrill. I felt small and stupid and childish for thinking that, and for being there at all. Garcia’s face set unpleasantly, but Vinaldi held up a hand and Garcia stayed put like a good boy.
“Mr. Randall has been away,” Vinaldi said mildly, his head cocked slightly. “Obviously, he has been keeping low company and forgotten the niceties of conversation amongst normal people.” Then he turned to face me again. “I know nothing about Reynolds’s death. If that’s what you’ve come here to talk about, then you’re wasting my time even more than I suspected.”
“Someone clipped him. At first I thought it was because they were coming after me, and got him by mistake.”
Vinaldi laughed heartily. “And you think it was me? Tell me, why would I do that? You’re nothing. No threat to me, if you ever were. You’re not even a fucking cop anymore. Why would I waste good money having you clipped?”
“It wasn’t me they were after. Mal was investigating a string of homicides,” I said, watching Vinaldi’s reaction carefully. “Whoever killed him did so because they wanted him to stop.”
“And who are these dead people?”
“Five women. Killed in a certain way.”
“We don’t kill women, Randall. Even you know that.”
“Laverne Latoya and Louella Richardson.”
If I hadn’t been looking very closely, I wouldn’t have seen it A tiny flinch in Vinaldi’s eyelid. He turned to his hired help. “Jaz, you heard of these people?”
Jaz trotted out a dutiful “No,” still staring hard at me. Vinaldi turned back and did a theatrical shrug.
“Funny,” I said. “Louella was a regular at Club Bastard the last couple weeks—but maybe she wasn’t really your type. I gather she could read. I think Laverne was one of your dancers. I can check that out later, but you’ve already told me the answer. I found her sister half an hour ago, incidentally, OD’d on Rapt from a Weasel Enema foil. You still deal Rapt, don’t you, Johnny? I wonder if you’d slip someone a little uncut just to make sure they couldn’t tie you to a dead woman.”
Vinaldi had started to breathe a little harder. “Get out,” he said.
“Laverne and Louella got carved up. Their eyes were ripped out,” I said. One of the girls in the pool gasped quietly, a little hand fluttering up to her mouth. “Sound familiar?” Then, not thinking, I threw a curve—just saying the first thing that came into my head. “Where’s your wife? She not joining you round the pool?”
Furious now, Vinaldi took a step closer to me. The veins in his neck were standing out like cords. “She’s wherever the fuck she wants to be, for what business it is of yours.”
“Someone got away from you. Must have been kind of embarrassing.”
“Not nearly so embarrassing as for your friends, if you still have any, to have to comb you out of the fucking sewers.”
I thought he was going to come at me then, but—using more self-control than I could have mustered—he sighed suddenly, and shook his head.
“You’re a sad fuck, Randall. I look in your eyes and I can see that you’re not