Wolf in the Shadows - Marcia Muller [21]
Renshaw smiled, too. “Well, here we are, Ms, McCone— two stubborn bullshitters at a standoff. You want Ripinsky, and I’ll admit I want him, too. Same objective. Motive? Maybe the same, but probably not. What are we to do?”
I couldn’t level, not with this man. My motives—concern, caring, something like love—weren’t within his frame of reference. Oh, he’d heard of them, all right, maybe even experienced them a time or two, but in this situation they simply didn’t apply.
“Your move, Ms. McCone.”
Again I met his eyes; they were no longer amused. I said, “All I can tell you is that when I find Ripinsky, there’ll be nothing good in store for him.”
“Either you’re telling the truth or you’re a very good actress. For your sake, I hope it’s the former.”
“Why?”
Behind the sheen of his glasses his eyes went hard and icy. The skin around his mouth paled. “Because,” he said, “if you have any affection for Ripinsky, you’re going to be badly hurt. When I find him, I intend to kill him.”
Five
Now I had to call upon all my acting skills. With an effort, I kept my voice level as I asked, “What did Ripinsky do to you?”
Renshaw shook his head. “That’s confidential—like your business dealings with him.”
I thought for a moment. “All right,” I said, “I’ll tell you what I think happened. You or your partner hired Ripinsky, possibly to deal with a situation that required his specific talents. Ripinsky screwed up or double-crossed you. You say you want to find him, so you probably don’t have any more of a clue to his whereabouts than I do. That’s why you agreed to see me; you thought I might give you a lead.”
Renshaw regarded me with narrowed eyes.
“That’s where I can help you,” I added. “If you tell me what went down, I can find him. You see, Ripinsky and I used to be lovers; I know how he thinks.” Two lies there, McCone.
Renshaw raised his eyebrows in disbelief. “You were lovers, and now you’re willing to turn him over to me?”
I shrugged. “Situations change. People change.”
“That’s cold, Ms. McCone.”
“You were a friend of Ripinsky once?”
He nodded.
“Well, then, you ought to understand. Why should I feel any differently than you, now that it’s over?”
That gave him pause. He got up, began pacing again. I watched him carefully. This man wanted to kill Hy; if I were to prevent that, I’d need to know him.
“Ms. McCone,” he said after a bit, “I understand you’re a good investigator, and I suppose you have the inside track if what you say about your former relationship with Ripinsky is true. But I still doubt you can find him when our operatives haven’t been able to locate him since Sunday night.”
Sunday night—not Saturday, when the rental car had been dropped off. “We’ve reached a stalemate, then.”
He faced me, hands on hips. “You realize I don’t believe a word of your story—the business deal, the other investors who require confidentiality, Ripinsky cheating you. I’m not sure I even believe what seems more logical—that he dumped you and you’re attempting to use me to get back at him. All of this seems like a smoke screen for some private agenda that I’m not going to try to guess at.”
“My motives don’t matter. What does is that I can be bought to do what your operatives so far haven’t managed.”
Renshaw didn’t respond, but his eyes moved swiftly—calculating. He cocked his head as if listening to some internal debate. Then he nodded, said, “Okay, come with me,” and started for the door.
I got up and followed. “Where’re we going?”
“Downstairs. There’s a lot of material I need to familiarize you with. Afterward we’ll discuss your price.”
* * *
Five minutes later I was seated in the front row of a projection room off the building’s lobby. Renshaw pressed a switch on a console between us; the lights dimmed. He pushed another button, and a man’s picture appeared on the screen.
“Timothy Mourning,” Renshaw said. “CEO and chairman of the board of Phoenix Labs.”
Phoenix Labs. Where