Линда Ла Плант - Cold Blood

Caley smiled, a sad smile, because he knew his life from now on would be filled with Saffrons. Money breeds money, breeds bastards.

Lorraine stared from the window of Francois’s steaming hot car. She was sure Caley had not seen her, and she was glad, not because she looked bad, but because she might not have been able to hide her expression. Saffron’s blonde head was tilted back, laughing, Robert Caley’s hand resting at the nape of her neck. A golden couple, seemingly with no remorse, no pain and no grief. She was more than glad, because it made her angry that she had been such a fool to have felt something for him, even for a moment. He was not worth it, not worth another thought, and whatever she felt would soon pass. He would soon be forgotten, just like poor misguided Anna Louise, whose skeleton lay covered in the morgue.

Lorraine walked in as Rosie snapped her last case shut on her pink, frilled, nylon bedspread.

‘Right, that’s me packed. You know they want us out as soon as possible as they’re booked out?’

‘How long did you book the room for?’

‘Well, I did tell you we got a special rate so long as we leave before the hotel fills up. Mardi Gras is their busiest time.’

‘I know that,’ Lorraine snapped.

Rosie crossed to the writing table. ‘I did a provisional booking at a place way out of town in case we needed to stay on, but we don’t, do we?’

Rooney barged in and dumped down his bags.

‘So, how did it go?’

‘Cheque’s in my wallet, one million!’

Rosie whooped, and Rooney hit the flimsy wall with his fist. ‘Yes, yes. One fucking million.’

Lorraine folded her arms. ‘So you’re both leaving?’

Rooney frowned. ‘Well, we all are, aren’t we? I mean, did you want to stay on for Mardi Gras?’

‘Nope, I’m not crazy about the idea of being elbowed around the streets, but...’

‘But what?’ Rosie said as she opened Lorraine’s wallet and took out the cheque.

‘But, well, you think we’re all done here?’

Rosie passed the cheque to Rooney.

‘You mean we should see if it’s good? I doubt if she’d bounce it on us,’ he said, squinting at the cheque.

Lorraine had that edgy feel, sort of shifting her weight from one foot to the next.

‘Nick’s room rented, is it?’

‘What?’

‘I said, is Nick’s room rented out?’

Yeah, well, we stopped paying for it,’ Rosie said, becoming suspicious.

‘His body collected by his sister?’

Yes,’ Rooney said, frowning.

You know it was, we told you it was, he’ll be buried by now.’

‘And forgotten, just like that? Forgotten like that pitiful skeleton in the morgue? Well, for your information I have not forgotten Nick Bartello, I have not forgotten him in anyway.’

‘Shit, Lorraine, nor have we. If this is leading to us giving his relatives something from the one million, I don’t mind,’ Rooney said.

‘We don’t need to give anybody else a cut of the one million,’ Lorraine said, slumping into a chair and leaning forward, her head in her hands.

‘So what’s up?’

She shook her head and then leaned back, closing her eyes. ‘What’s up is some piece of shit killed Nick, and that shit, whoever he is, is just walking, and nobody is doing anything about it, that’s what’s up.’

Rooney sighed, he could feel the carpet being tugged from under his big flat feet. ‘Lorraine, the cops have nothing, we got nothing. What do you want us all to do now, stay on here and start up another investigation?’

‘I want us to finish off what we started, I said I wanted you to visit Fryer Jones’s bar, I said I wanted his place searched with that cop you palmed five hundred bucks to, because some fucker got his necklace. Some bastard killed Nick Bartello and I just want us to check out a few things before we all piss off back to Los Angeles and buy our own condominiums, okay?’

Rooney sighed, lifting his hands up to calm her. ‘Okay, just stay cool, I’ll contact him right now, we can do it straight away. But, Lorraine, if we come up with nothin’ then I don’t care what you say, I’m out of here. What about you, Rosie?’

Rosie nodded. ‘Yes, I’ll leave with Bill.’

Lorraine stood up. ‘Fine, but I might hang around until I am satisfied we gave Nick a run for his cut of the cash. So, we’ll keep one room for us all, make it mine as I haven’t started to pack.’

Lorraine slammed the bathroom door shut hard, and Rosie sighed.

‘When she gets into these moods, I could punch her, I really could. I mean, how can we come up with something if the police got nothin’, huh? You tell me that? She just gets obsessive.’

Rooney rubbed his chin. ‘If she wasn’t so obsessive, Rosie, we’d never have found Anna Louise Caley or be looking at a cheque for one million. So we get off our backsides and do like she says because we got to keep her sweet. I don’t want her suddenly saying she’s got a right to a bigger cut.’

‘She can’t do that!’

Rooney dangled the cheque. ‘This is made out to her, Rosie. She’s gonna have to put it in her account, then pay us our share, so I’d say we do whatever she wants us to do.’

Lorraine showered and changed but didn’t feel very fresh or energized, just angry, and she knew it was connected to seeing Robert Caley. She glared at her reflection in the mirror.

‘Hey, chill out of this one. Remember, he’s not worth one more second of your time, so stop this!’

Rooney tapped and she opened up. ‘You got someone in here?’

‘No, I was talking to myself.’

‘Oh well, this cop’s downstairs, you want to talk to him?’

‘Yep.’

Rooney held open the door. All their bags were littered around the room. ‘Lemme warn you, he’s no Burt Lancaster, he’s kind of a bit freaky-lookin’.’

‘Oh yeah?’

‘Yeah, his neck is as wide as his ass!’

Harper sat with Rosie, well beamed herself; they made a good couple. He had a beer in his fat pudgy hand, and lifted half a cheek of his ass as Lorraine joined them. They were sitting beneath an umbrella on the blue and white plastic furniture of a cheap sidewalk café, its neon signs glowing weakly in the daylight. The pavement in front of them was thronging with people.

‘This is Lorraine Page.’

‘Hi, how you doing?’

‘Fine, thanks for coming over.’ She looked across at him over her dark shades. Rooney was right, the guy was obese.

‘No problem, you want a beer or...’

‘Coffee,’ she said, and lit a cigarette.

‘Place is hotting up. Pity you aren’t sticking around for Carnival.’

Lorraine stubbed out her cigarette. ‘Okay, can we get down to why we wanted to see you?’

‘Sure, fire away.’

Lorraine spoke quickly, detailing the events that led up to Nick Bartello’s death and mentioning the fact that he had been in Fryer Jones’s bar the previous night, and might possibly have returned.

‘Look, I know he was your pal, right? But he was crazy to go to Ward 9 late at night and to get involved with anyone there. Now, I know we investigated this, we asked around, because he was found close to the bar, you know, about a block away down an alley, but nobody there saw him. Nobody saw him down the alley either.’

Lorraine leaned forward. ‘Okay, so you’re sayin’ with Mardi Gras comin’ some poor fucker is gonna walk off the main drag by accident, go into Fryer Jones’s bar, have a few beers, walk out and get his throat cut? And all the cops are gonna say is that he shouldn’t have been in that district? You got notices up there saying, “Beware, you could end up fucking dead”?’

Harper wrinkled his pig-nose, annoyed at being spoken to by a woman in that tone.