City Of Mirrors: A Diana Poole Thriller Part 16

"Did he?"

He nodded. "Two weeks ago. He phoned. He told me on a certain day at a certain time to put the cash in an envelope, then put it in my mailbox and leave the house."

"And did you?"

"Yes. And when I came back the cash was gone."

"And what did you get for that in return?"

"Their silence."

"Oh, Christ, Ryan."

Desperate, he asked, "What do you think?"

"I think you're a dead man."

"Oh, G.o.d." He rocked back and forth on his chair like a child. "Oh, G.o.d." Then he abruptly stopped and glared at me. "You're extraordinarily calm about all this."

"I've just seen two dead bodies. I've lost my part in Zaitlin's movie. And I'm angry." I paused. "Do you know a Zackary Logan?"

He shook his head. "Who is he?"

"About your height, thinner, hair the color of sand, twenty-eight years old. Handsome in that kind of bland actor's perfect-headshot way."

"Sounds like a lot of guys in Hollywood."

"They found his body at the Bel Air house where you had s.e.x with Jenny. Could he have been the one who drove you there? Who took your cash?"

He blanched. "I am a dead man." Tears rolled down his red checks. "Dead Man Crying." He got to his feet. "I have to go home. I have to think."

"You need to talk to Detective Spangler."

"I need to work this out in my head first. I need time."

He stumbled out of the kitchen. I followed him outside to the deck.

He turned to me and pleaded. "You won't tell anybody, will you? Promise?"

"I promise," I said, remembering how my oath to Celia had worked out.

After he left, I went into the bathroom and threw up the swill, the wine, and the Snickers bar. Then I sat on the floor, leaned against the shower door, pulled my legs up to my chest, and rested my head against my knees.

I thought about Celia trying to find love on her own terms. But it never happens that way. There's always a Ben to remind you that other people have terms, too. I thought of Ryan's insatiable urges leading him to Jenny Parson, Bella Casa, and blackmail. And what about Beth Woods? Did Jenny have a video of her groveling? Jenny, who told me she couldn't play-act or pretend. Yet in the ugliest way she was play-acting, and she could have been murdered for it. Using the rim of the toilet bowl, I pushed myself up and stood in front of the mirror. I looked like h.e.l.l.

I took a shower, brushed my teeth, crawled into bed, and turned on the TV-Bette Davis was blowing smoke. I popped a sleeping pill.

Waiting for it to work its magic, I stared at the ceiling and wondered why Jenny would use Bella Casa for her blackmail scheme. Keep the answer simple, Diana, like acting. Don't overthink it. Don't overact it. Maybe she used the house because it was empty and she had a key to it.

When mother and I lived there, we had a master key that unlocked the main door and other exterior entrances except for the swimming pool door. We had a separate key for the pool man. That way he didn't have access to the interior of the house. That is, if the connecting door that led into the gallery was kept locked.

Ryan had told me he was let in through the pool area, not the front door. That meant Jenny didn't have the master key. She had access to the house only through the indoor pool. So who would have that key? Celia and the pool man. Selling keys to homes of celebs or the wealthy in order to have a duplicate made was hardly unheard of. But Celia had everything to lose and nothing to gain by doing that. But what about P. J. Binder, my mother's "mislaid man"? The one who found the body.

I grabbed my iPhone and Googled his name. I found the address of P. J. Binder's pool-supply company.

Then I called Ryan. "I want to take control of my life; do you?"

"Huh?"

"If so, come over here around ten tomorrow morning."

"Will this help my ... situation?"

"Only if you're not the murderer." I ended the call and waited for the dark soft blanket of sleep to wrap around me.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO.

There are two kinds of pool men in Southern California: the free spirits and the dark spirits. Both drive pickups with scoopers, long-handled nets, and plastic bottles of chlorine rattling around in the back. The free spirits work just long enough so they can afford to surf, windsail, hang-glide, or just hang out for the rest of their lives. The darker souls are the haunted ones, like the vets who have returned from Iraq or Afghanistan. They clean your pool before the sun comes up and then disappear.

P. J. Binder was in the second category.

There were only a few paparazzi waiting for me when Ryan and I drove away in my Jag the next morning. I would soon be off their radar completely.

About an hour later I pulled into a s.p.a.ce in front of a one-story building with P. J. Binder Pool Cleaning & Supplies painted in large blue wavy letters on its facade.

As Ryan and I got out of the car, the hot valley air slammed against me. We were in an industrial section near Pacoima. There were some other stores: a metal shop, a fencing company, and an auto-parts dealer. But mostly the buildings were boarded up, the empty lots were littered with trash, and rusted grocery carts lay on their sides here and there.

Ryan squinted at a new red BMW convertible in a parking slot that had Binder's name on it. "Expensive car."

I glanced across the street. Waiting by the curb were two paparazzi. Straddling his motorcycle, one wore a white helmet that shone in the sun like a giant Q ball. His darkened visor was flipped down. The other's helmet was black as a giant 8 ball, and his visor was also down. Cameras were slung across their bodies on straps.

"The fame suckers must've followed us from my house. Just keep walking," I told Ryan, turning my face away from them.

He immediately turned his back, dropped his Bermuda shorts, and bent over, wiggling his big, round, pale bottom at them.

"Jesus Christ, the last thing I need is to be seen standing next to your fat a.s.s. Grow up!" I ran for the pool-supplies entrance.

He loped after me. "I sometimes wonder what's in it for me to grow up."

"How about not being arrested for murder, or not having Parson order one of his goons to beat you to a pulp for s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g his daughter! Now zip it."

"I won't say a word."

"I meant your fly." I threw open the door.

Inside we approached a blond-colored faux-wood counter. A woman in her mid-twenties sat behind it, tweeting, texting, or s.e.xting. Peering down, her bleached white hair cascaded over part of her face as she expertly touched the tiny keys with long nails painted cement-gray.

"With you in a sec," she said, not bothering to look up.

The wall behind her held sagging shelves displaying dusty gallon-size bottles of cleaners and numerous gadgets to keep pools purified. Three rattan chairs with high-fanned backs lined another wall. A ceiling fan slowly turned, blades wobbling, feebly trying to stir the stale air.

The young woman hit SEND and smiled up at us, flipping her hair back from eyes heavily lined in black pencil. "What can I do for you?" Her lipstick was the same color as her nails.

"I'd like to speak with Mr. Binder." I took off my sungla.s.ses.

"Daaad ... dyyyyy!" she yelled at the top of her lungs.

Ryan lurched back from the counter.

She c.o.c.ked an eyebrow at him. "Hung over?"

"Jesus, don't you have an intercom system?" he complained.

"What do you think this is, Home Depot?"

The door next to the chairs opened and a man in his late sixties with a thick gray beard, and shoulder-length hair to match, stepped from his office.

"You want me?" His voice sounded like two rocks rubbing together.

"Mr. Binder?" I asked.

"Yep." His belly, the size of a small bag of sand, filled his faded blue work shirt.

"We're here about the house in Bel Air with the indoor swimming pool." He looked like a man you needed to be direct with.

"Know nothing about it." He started to go back into his office.

"I think you cleaned that pool a long time ago. You knew my mother, the actress Nora ..."

He turned slowly and faced me again. "Nora?" His weathered face softened as he studied me. "You must be her daughter Diana."

I nodded.

"Come on in."

We followed him into a small room decorated with a large metal desk, an American flag on a stand in one corner, and a rifle hung on the wall behind his desk.

"Take a seat," he gestured, We sat on two folding chairs.

"Sorry to hear about your mother." He settled into a worn leather chair that had one arm missing and a jean jacket hung on the back. "She was d.a.m.n good to me." He grinned, baring yellow teeth.

Not another one who had an affair with her, I thought. Since I had never seen him, I tried to imagine him younger but there was no shadow of youth in his worn face.

"So what can I do for you?"

"I know you discovered the corpse at the Bel Air house. Could you tell us what you told the police?"

"I saw you on TV. You discovered that girl's body."

"Jenny Parson."

"And now you want to know what I told the police about another dead body."

"That's right."

"You in trouble?"

"Yes!" Ryan blurted desperately.

"I was asking her," he said, eyeing Ryan suspiciously.

"Let's just say my life has become very complicated since I found Jenny Parson, and I'd like to un-complicate it."

"Dealing with one corpse isn't enough for you?"

"You might be able to shed some light on the death of Jenny Parson."

"You think the two are connected?"

"They could be."

He shook his head. "Sorry, but I can't help you."

"You said my mother was good to you. How?"

His eyes shined with memories. He was having an affair with her.

"Your mother talked about her career, about work, as if it could save a person. Make them whole. She never once asked about the war." His brown eyes fell on Ryan. "That would be 'Nam."

"I a.s.sumed by the rifle." Ryan crossed his bare legs importantly. "M-21, right?"

Binder warily took in his curly red hair, Bermuda shorts, Hawaiian shirt, and Uggs. "Right. Sniper rifle."

"Accurate up to 750 yards. Light armor piercing and equipped with a Leatherwood 3x-9x adjustable ranging telescope." Ryan sounded like a college student listing what he had memorized for a test.

"You shoot?"

"No. Only write about them."

"You write about guns, but don't shoot?"