Confidence Tricks (2 page)

I ordered a beer and some chips from the barkeep. A pimply, overweight chick in an apron brought Cybil a menu and took her drink order.

“What’s that you’re having?” Cybil asked the business suit when the server had left. “Sure looks good.”

The guy almost choked on his fajita. He blushed, dabbed his forehead with a napkin, and stammered an incoherent reply. Cybil beamed a big fake smile at him.

A short while later, she started to rummage through her handbag, growing more and more frantic, to the point where she emptied the entire contents on her table.

“Anything the matter?” the suit asked, concerned.

“This is really embarrassing,” said Cybil, just as the server returned with her Margarita. “I think I left my purse at home. I’ve no cash, no checks, no credit cards, nothing.”

Huh. I’d just seen her use a credit card at the Moonstone Café.

The server put the cocktail back on her tray and snatched the menu from Cybil’s table. I just knew the girl was rolling her eyes, even though I couldn’t see her face.

“I’m really sorry,” Cybil said to her. “I don’t know how I could forget my purse. I hope it wasn’t stolen.” She looked at the businessman, all helpless little girl. “And I was so looking forward to the chicken fajitas.”

“Hold it.” The conventioneer’s voice boomed through the room. “The lady is my guest.” He tapped Cybil’s tabletop with his index finger, showing the server where to put the menu and drink.

After some see-saw—
I can’t accept that
—
Oh but I insist
, etc.—Cybil eventually took her cocktail, ordered the chicken fajitas, and joined her benefactor at his table.

Smooth. I had to give her that. I thought I had a pretty good idea of what was going on. Surfer Dude would probably be waiting outside.

* * *

Cybil’s new friend had no clue that Surfer Dude was following them to the hotel. Neither did Surfer Dude notice his own tail.

The Augustus Hotel was friendly territory. My friend and one-time love interest Sally Coleman was their chief of security. I called her on a courtesy phone at the reception and asked her to join me in the lobby. While still on the phone, I saw Cybil and her prey ride the elevator up. I let them go. All I needed to do was keep tabs on Surfer Dude.

He was still sitting in one of the armchairs and reading the
O.C. Register
when I noticed Sally enter the lobby from a door marked
Staff Only
. She’d gained some weight since the birth of her second child, but it only added to her feminine charisma. I always thought of her type as British—auburn hair and freckles all over the place. She gave me a peck on the cheek and a hug. I used the embrace to whisper the barest outlines of the situation in her ear.

Sally and I rode up with Surfer Dude ten minutes later, pretending to be a bickering married couple. He could barely conceal his amusement as we exchanged insults and abuses. Surfer Dude got off on the seventh floor, and so did we; but instead of turning left like him, we made a right turn and walked down the long corridor. Our mock argument afforded us many opportunities to stop and turn our heads, so that we had no trouble seeing which door Surfer Dude pushed open.

We gave them a minute before making our move.

Sally swiped her master key through the electronic lock to room number 7112. When the green light appeared, I pushed the door open and we marched inside.

“Hotel security,” Sally declared and held her ID up in the air. Surfer Dude had been shooting a photo when we entered. His jaw dropped, and so did the hand that held the camera. The suit wasn’t wearing one now; in fact he was struggling to hide his private parts with a blanket. Cybil jumped out of bed, her naked breasts wiggling back and forth.

I snatched the camera from the nonplussed Surfer Dude.

“Let’s see some ID, folks,” said Sally.

* * *

“What was that woman’s name again?”

Cathy’s voice had an edge to it that made the hairs on my neck stand up.

“Sally Coleman,” I said, trying to sound casual. “But that’s completely irrelevant. The important part is—”

“I don’t think it’s irrelevant that you’re meeting up with your old flames.”

I’d mentioned Sally once, during one of those long nights that occur early in every relationship where you talk and talk and talk and kid yourself into thinking it’s a good idea to share everything about yourself. I hadn’t expected that Cathy would even remember the name. Which only goes to show how much I know about women.

“You’re being unfair. I’m not responsible for this guy staying at the Augustus.” It took some effort to try and keep the strain out of my voice. I didn’t succeed either, at that.

“Oh, now
I
am being unfair?”

I gave her the time-out signal. “Honey, I promise we can talk about Sally at any length you wish. She’s married with two little kids, so I don’t see why you should be upset, but all right, we’ll talk. Tell you what. I’ll take you out to Il Fornaio tonight, and we’ll discuss anything you want.”

Her breathing slowed down. Her lips relaxed, and the thin line that had been her mouth swung back into the familiar sensuous curve. “O-kay,” she said, letting her shoulders droop. Then, “Sorry if I got a little emotional there.”

I wrapped my arms around her and said that everything was all right.

* * *

The woman who answered the door looked nothing like Fran Drummond. She was tall and angular and had her strawberry-blonde hair piled up in a neat bun.

“My name is Benson Keirstad,” I introduced myself. “I’m here to see Mrs. Drummond?”

“Oh, yes, from her bible group, right?”

That was the pretext my client had asked me to use. She didn’t want her sister to know she’d hired a detective, at least not yet.

“Please do come in, Mr. Keirstad. My sister is expecting you.” She held her right hand out to me, thought better of it and wiped it on her apron, then extended it again. “I’m Edith O’Malley.”

I shook her hand and followed her into the spacious home. Edith led me through a hallway and into a section that seemed to have been recently added to the original structure.

“It’s wonderful that Fran has found so much support in your group, Mr. Keirstad,” Edith chatted away. “I mean, after Earl killed himself last year, we were really worried about Fran, my husband and I were, so we insisted she come live with us.”

Mrs. Drummond hadn’t mentioned a suicide. Then again, why should she.

I nodded solemnly, as I imagined a bible group member might. “Fran told me about your act of kindness.”

“Oh, but it was just the thing to do, you know.” She lowered her voice as we reached the end of the hallway. “Fran has always needed looking after. While Earl was alive, it wasn’t an issue—I mean, the man was a prince. But a woman in her fifties, it’s hard suddenly being all alone if you’ve never been on your own, right?”

Edith stopped at a closed door.

“Anyway, here we are.”

She knocked and entered the room. “Here’s Mr. Keirstad for you, Fran.”

My client sat in an easy chair by the window, her swollen legs propped up on a leather footstool. She wore the same black dress she’d had on in my office the day before.

We chatted briefly and awkwardly until Edith took her leave. I wasted no more time.

“Cybil’s date of birth is April 21st, 1980. Does that agree with your daughter’s birth date?”

Mrs. Drummond’s mouth stood open, and the color had drained from her face. She nodded. I noticed a nervous twitch in her left eye.

“The full name is Cybil Morgan. She lives at 3103 Hillock Drive in Anaheim Hills, together with a man named Charles Bostock.”

I looked up from my notes.

“I’m afraid I don’t have good news for you,” I said. “Cybil and Bostock work a confidence scheme called the badger game. You know what that is?”

She shook her head.

“Well, lemme tell you,” I said and began my report.

* * *

“...but the victim didn’t want to press charges, and so all the hotel did was to ban them from their premises.”

The twitch in Mrs. Drummond’s eye had gotten worse. “But how would they go about extorting money from the victim?”

“Bostock had a digital camera on him. He’d already taken some compromising pictures of the guy. It’s pretty standard: First they wangle some cash out of the poor slob on the spot. Then they write him at his home address, maybe include some photos, threaten to expose him to his wife or kids.” I shrugged my shoulders.

Mrs. Drummond buried her homely face in her hands. I felt sorry for her, and yet something nagged at me. Somebody had said something that didn’t quite fit, but I couldn’t figure out what it was.

“What’re you going to do?” I asked her.

“I don’t know. I was hoping—of course—never mind.” She sighed. “Maybe I’ll talk it over with my sister and brother-in-law tonight. They’re good people, with a lot of common sense.”

I told her to let me know if there was anything else I could do and took my leave. I turned and looked at her before closing the door. Her eye was twitching violently.

* * *

When I returned to my apartment, Cathy was all dolled up for our evening out. She looked terrific in a short, form-fitting black dress and matching high-heel sandalettes. A silver ankle bracelet tinkled as I walked her to the car.

“How’d it go?” she asked as I pulled off the curb.

I shrugged. “She was pretty shaken, but overall she took it well.”

Cathy put a hand on my arm. “Well, good thing you’ve got it over with, huh?”

I fingered a cigarette from my breast pocket and lit it up. “Something’s bothering me about the whole thing.”

“You wanna talk about it?”

I shook my head and tried desperately to concentrate on what it was that hadn’t sounded right.

“Honey, I’m young, but I’m not too young for you to share your worries with me.”

I slammed on the brakes. “What’s that?”

“I’m not too young for you—”

“Damn it,” I said and flipped a u-turn. “Cybil’s too young.”

“What’re you talking about?” Cathy asked while holding on to the safety grip.

“The ages don’t work out. Her sister said Mrs. Drummond was in her fifties when Earl committed suicide. That was last year, so she’s at least fifty-one now. Cybil is twenty-eight.”

“So?”

“So Fran Drummond would’ve been twenty-three, twenty-two at best, when Cybil was born. But she told me she was an eighteen-year-old freshman. Something’s wrong with her story.”

Cathy chewed on that for a minute. “If Cybil isn’t her daughter, why did she hire you?”

“That’s what I’m going to ask her.”

I made it to the O’Malleys’ in less than ten minutes. The sun had just set, but the air wasn’t yet chilly.

“Oh, Mr. Keirstad, I’m afraid my sister just left the house.” Edith O’Malley looked disconsolate.

“Where’d she go?”

“I don’t have a clue. She didn’t seem well. Is anything the matter?”

I jogged back toward the car. Not knowing what to say, I pretended I hadn’t heard the question.

* * *

It was completely dark now, and I had to slow down to check the house numbers. Hillock Drive wasn’t exactly the best corner of Anaheim Hills. Rows and rows of white clapboard houses, most of which had seen their last paint job before I was born.

I parked in the street before number 3103. “Stay in the car,” I told Cathy as I jumped out.

Two shots rang out from the house. I turned back to Cathy.

“Lock the doors!”

My Glock in hand, I sprinted toward the entrance. The door was unlocked. I stepped in and stood in a small living room. There was litter all over the place, beer cans, cigarette ashes, magazines, DVD covers, potato chips, Charles Bostock in boxers and with a couple of bloody holes in his chest. I detected neither pulse nor breathing.

“Do you remember him?” I heard Mrs. Drummond cry from the bedroom. “Do you remember my husband?”

Cybil sat on the bed, naked, her mouth wide open as if she were screaming, but there was no sound. Fran Drummond held a large revolver in one hand and a four-by-six photograph in the other.

“Better take that gun down, Mrs. Drummond,” I said.

She jumped at the sound of my voice, but managed to keep the revolver aimed at Cybil.

“No, Mr. Keirstad. They killed Earl. I’m not going to let them get away with it.”

She brandished the photograph at Cybil. “Do you remember him?”

Cybil was in shock. She showed no reaction. Her skin was paler than the linen.

“What do you mean, they killed Earl?”

“It was as you told me yourself today. The badger game.”

“They sucked Earl into the badger game?” I figured as long as I kept her talking, she wouldn’t shoot.

Mrs. Drummond nodded. “He’d been to a conference in L.A. It was as you said. They extorted some cash from him right there in the hotel room. Then they wrote and demanded more.”

She lunged forward and held the gun in Cybil’s face. “Isn’t that right? Isn’t that right?”

Cybil nodded frantically, sobbing. Tears and snot mixed around her blood-red lips.

“Earl wasn’t going to let them milk him till the end of his days. He came to me and told me everything. Showed me the photos too.

“I was livid. I told Earl to move out and never talk to me again. I never expected to be betrayed by him. He was the light of my life.

“I was too hard on him. I’d always thought of him as a tower of strength. But he couldn’t bear my pain and disappointment. Shot himself through the head that same night.” Tears rolled down Mrs. Drummond’s face, but she didn’t seem to care.

“Can you imagine what I felt when I ran into the woman I’d seen on the blackmail photos? At first it only brought up the pain again. Then I realized it was fate that had made me cross her path. I was destined to make her pay for Earl’s death.”

“So you just used me to find out where she lives?” I kept my Glock trained on Mrs. Drummond.

“I’m sorry about that, Mr. Keirstad, but the world will be the better without them. Believe me, I tried to follow her myself, twice, but I’m in no shape for that kind of thing. I needed your help.”

I saw her eyes narrow and knew she was going to shoot before she raised the gun. I beat her by a split second. My slug hit her in the hand, jerked her arm around. Mrs. Drummond’s bullet bored into the bed’s headboard, splintering the plywood. Cybil screamed hysterically. I picked up my client’s revolver from the floor and tucked it into my waistband.