Deadfall nd-15 Page 9

  There was no discussing the subject with her; she got defensive and angry whenever I tried, which usually led to a fight. I hoped the same thing wasn’t going to happen with the subject of her alcohol consumption. It was a matter we hadn’t discussed any further last night. What we had discussed, at great length and to no conclusion whatsoever, was the Reverend Dunston and his relationship with the Right Reverend Clyde T. Daybreak. I think we both had the same fantasy on that score: that he would just disappear again, as magically as he had appeared yesterday morning, and we would never have to deal with him again.

  I got my old clunker started and drove up over Laguna and down to the high-rise where Alex-excuse me, Alejandro-Ozimas had his penthouse. Parking isn’t so bad around there after nine A.M.; most of the neighborhood drones (of which I was one) had left for work by then. I found a place for the car around the corner, and walked back and rang Ozimas’s bell.

  There was an answer this time, after about ten seconds. A young, unaccented male voice, of the type that can only be described as fruity, yelled through the speaker in angry tones, “Yes? What is it?” If I had had my ear down there I might have suffered damage to the eardrum. I pushed the talk button and gave my name and occupation and said I wanted to discuss an important business matter with Mr. Ozimas, one relating to Kenneth Purcell. The voice snapped, “I’ll see if he’s receiving,” and clicked off.

  I waited. And I thought: So it’s late in the fourth quarter of a crucial game for the ’Forty-Niners, they’re trailing by six points, they’ve got the ball and eighty yards to go for a touchdown. Joe Montana calls time out and goes over to the sidelines to talk to coach Bill Walsh. Walsh says, “What I think we should do, Joe, I think we should throw deep to Dwight Clark down the left sidelines.” And Montana says, “Good idea, Coach, but I’d better check with Dwight first. I’ll see if he’s receiving.”

  I laughed aloud at my own wit and made a mental note to share it with Kerry and Eberhardt. It made me feel like kicking my heels a little, like Snoopy on top of his doghouse when he gets off a good one. Maybe this was going to be one of my better days.

  At least three minutes went by. I was getting ready to ring the bell again when the electronic locking system made its wounded-fly sound. I pushed inside and got into the elevator and rode it up to the twenty-first floor, where it deposited me in a kind of foyer with a couple of chairs in it, in case anybody needed to sit down while waiting. I didn’t need to sit down or wait: the door opened five seconds after I used the ornate knocker in the middle of it.

  The kid who materialized in front of me was about twenty, dressed in a white housecoat and dark slacks. He had clear, pale skin, curly brown hair, and features like those on a classic Greek statue. He was very pretty; you couldn’t describe him any other way. He was also furious about something. His dark eyes glittered and snapped, his mouth was so pinched at the corners you could see little white knots of muscle there, and his fruity voice was shrill with rage when he said, “Follow me. He’ll see you in the breakfast room.”

  I followed him through some demented interior decorator’s idea of elegant living. Everything was in white and silver, with little touches of glossy black; it made me feel as though I were walking through rooms full of snow and silver frost. There was also a lot of nude statuary, mostly male, none of it as pretty as the kid. Eventually we ended up in a glassed-in nook that overlooked a jungle of potted plants on the penthouse terrace. When the weather was clear, as it was today, you also had a sweeping view of the city. Even the towers of the Golden Gate Bridge were visible to the north, above the wooded hills of the Presidio.

  There were two people sitting in the nook, facing each other across a table laden with expensive silver and china and the remains of breakfast. One of them was a diminutive platinum-blond woman of about twenty-five, her sleek little body draped in a lacy peignoir; she was attractive, vapidly so, and her eyes had a dull, bombed-out look. She was picking a cinnamon roll apart into crumbs, as if she were trying to make confetti out of it. The man across from her wore a silver robe with black piping. He was twice her age-small, brown, lots of black hair combed into waves, handsome in a dissipated way. I would probably have taken him for a Filipino even if I hadn’t known who he was.

  He smiled at me and said, “I am Alex Ozimas. Please sit down.” His voice carried an accent, but it was very faint. He struck me as an intelligent and educated man.

  I sat on the table’s third chair. The girl continued to pick the roll apart; she didn’t look at me or at Ozimas or at the furious kid in the white coat. She might not have known any of us were there.

  Ozimas said to the kid, “Ted, bring another cup and pour our guest some of your excellent coffee.”

  Ted was standing a little behind him, so that Ozimas didn’t see him mouth the words Fuck you before he turned and stalked off. Or maybe Ozimas did see it. He said to me, “I must apologize for Ted. He is very angry with me this morning.”

  “Oh?”

  “He doesn’t like it when I entertain young women.”

  I got it then. Ted was more than just a servant; he probably lived here and he probably also shared Ozimas’s bed on a more or less regular basis. Melanie Purcell had called Ozimas a “fag,” and this place and the kid pretty much confirmed his sexual orientation. Or rather, it confirmed his primary sexual orientation. It was plain that he liked a woman now and then, maybe as a change of pace. That was why the bombed-out blonde was here this morning.

  “Ted is a good boy,” Ozimas said, “despite his jealous nature. I don’t know what I would do without him.” Then he laughed abruptly and said, “Don’t you find it amusing?”

  “Find what amusing?”

  “The fact that Ted is Caucasian and I am Filipino. For many years it was a status symbol for rich white Americans to have Filipino houseboys. Surely you remember. I have reversed the trend. I am a rich Filipino who has a white American houseboy.”

  It hadn’t occurred to me to look at it that way. I said, “Good for you,” because I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  “You don’t approve?”

  “I have no opinion either way. It’s your business.”

  “Ah yes, business. You are a private detective?”

  “That’s right.”

  I gave him one of my cards. He looked at it and nodded slowly and then put it down beside his plate. “Please tell me who gave you my name in connection with Kenneth Purcell.”

  “His daughter, Melanie.”

  “Yes, a lovely girl.”

  I looked at him.

  “Actually,” he said, “a despicable little bitch. Kenneth despised her, too, of course.”

  “He left her a lot of money in his will.”

  “She was his daughter,” Ozimas said, and shrugged. “He believed in providing for his family.”

  “Did you know his brother?”

  “Yes.”

  “What was your relationship with him?”

  “Relationship? Ah, of course. Leonard was a homosexual and I am a bisexual; therefore you think we might have been lovers.”

  “I don’t think anything,” I said. “I’m only asking a question.”

  “Let me ask you a question before I answer yours. Do you dislike homosexuals?”

  “No. The man I’m working for is gay.”

  “Ah?”

  “Leonard’s housemate, Tom Washburn.”

  “I see. I’m afraid I have never met the man.”

  “About Leonard,” I said. “How well did you know him?”

  “Not well at all. I saw him two or three times at Kenneth’s home.”

  “Nowhere else?”

  “No.”

  “You do know he was murdered last week?”

  “Of course. And are you investigating his murder?”

  “Yes. Washburn believes it’s connected with Kenneth’s death.”

  “Really? In what way?”

  “His theory is that Kenneth didn’t fall accidentally-that he wa
s murdered too.”

  Ozimas raised an eyebrow. But he had time to think about what he was going to say in response because the houseboy, Ted, reappeared just then. The kid took a fancy china cup and saucer off the silver tray he was carrying, banged them down on the table — not quite hard enough to break or chip either one-and poured me some coffee, most but not all of which wound up in the cup.

  “Now, Ted,” Ozimas said reprovingly, “if you keep this up I won’t take you to Big Sur this weekend.”

  The kid didn’t answer, didn’t even look at him. He backed up, glaring over our heads, and stalked off again.

  For a time it was silent in the nook. Ozimas was still thinking; he had his mouth open slightly and he kept tapping his forefinger against his front teeth. The blond woman had finished shredding the cinnamon roll and was also making use of a forefinger: wetting it and then blotting up the crumbs one by one.

  I got tired of the quiet and said, “So what do you think, Mr. Ozimas? Could Kenneth have been murdered?”

  “I hadn’t considered the possibility until now,” he said. “But, yes, I suppose he might have inspired someone to an act of violence. He could be… abrasive, shall we say.”

  “Anyone in particular?”

  “Are you suggesting I might have killed him?”

  “No,” I said. Then I said, “Did you?”

  He liked that; it made him laugh. “Hardly. I was not at his home that evening.”

  “No, but you were there earlier that day. Around five.”

  “How did-Ah. Melanie. Yes, I was there. I left at about five-thirty. I drove straight home, as I remember, and spent the evening here; I expect Ted can vouch for that, if it becomes necessary.”

  “Would you mind telling me why you went to see Kenneth?”

  “It was a business matter.”

  “What sort of business? Foreign interests buying up American real estate?”

  He had been open up to now, urbane and faintly self-mocking; now I watched him close off-like watching something soft turn hard and unpleasant. This was the real Alex Ozimas. This was a shrewd and thoroughly corrupt son of a bitch who had got to where he was right now, twenty-one stories above the rest of us mortals, by manipulation, bribery, deceit, and general villainy. I looked at him right then and knew he was capable of anything to get what he wanted, or to protect what he already had. Anything at all.

  He said in a flat voice, “My business dealings with Kenneth Purcell were of a private and confidential nature. I will not discuss them with you or anyone else.”

  “Does that include the federal government?”

  He drank coffee instead of answering-and pulled an annoyed face because it was cold.

  I said, “All right, I won’t ask about your real estate deals. My hunch is that you and Kenneth had different business that day.”

  He studied me for a while; it was like being scrutinized by a rock. Then he said, “Yes?”

  “A snuff box,” I said. “An early eighteen hundreds snuff box made by Hainelin, with a Napoleonic battle scene engraved on the lid. Napoleon at Toulon.”

  Nothing changed in his face-and then it did, all at once. The hardness went out of it and a smile formed in the waxy brown softness that remained. I took this to mean he considered the conversation back on safe ground.

  “You believe I gave this snuff box to Kenneth?” he said.

  “Not gave it to him. Sold it to him. I’m sure you’re a generous man, Mr. Ozimas, but fifty thousand dollars is a hell of a lot of generosity.”

  He laughed. “Yes, so it is.”

  “Did you sell him the Hainelin box?”

  “I see no reason not to be frank with you. Yes, I sold the box to Kenneth.”

  “For how much?”

  “Twenty-five thousand dollars.”

  “Why so little, if it was worth fifty thousand?”

  “Why not? I might have sold it to a certain other collector for its full value, but Kenneth was my good friend. And he had recently done a substantial favor for me… no, I will not tell you what that favor was. Also, I confess I paid less for the box than the twenty-five thousand Kenneth paid me.”

  “Where did you get it?”

  “In Manila.”

  “Who did you buy it from?”

  Ozimas smiled and shook his head.

  “This certain other collector you mentioned,” I said. “Someone here in San Francisco?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who?”

  He hesitated, but only briefly. “Margaret Prine.”

  “Oh? So you know her, then.”

  “I have sold her a few items in the past. Items Kenneth already had or was not interested in owning.”

  “She’s an avid collector, I’ve been told.”

  “Quite avid. I am sure she would have been eager to have the Hainelin box if I had approached her with it.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “No.”

  “So she didn’t know before the party that you had sold it to Kenneth?”

  “Not unless Kenneth himself told her.”

  “How long before the party did he know you had it?”

  “Perhaps a week.”

  “And you gave it to him that night, around five o’clock?”

  “Yes.” Amusement decorated his face again. “Do you think Margaret Prine might have murdered poor Kenneth? Because she wanted the box for her own collection?”

  “Stranger things have happened, Mr. Ozimas.”

  “Yes, but Margaret Prine? No, no, the idea is too amusing.”

  “Hilarious,” I said. “Would you like to suggest a better candidate?”

  “I believe I will leave such speculation to you.”

  “How about Kenneth’s widow? What’s your opinion of her?”

  “A very attractive woman. Very clever. She propositioned me once, you know.”

  “Did she?”

  “Do you find that difficult to believe?”

  “No. Should I?”

  “ I don’t think so. Not that I’m irresistible, of course; it was merely that she considered seducing a man of my tastes a stimulating challenge.”

  “Uh-huh. Where did this happen?”

  “Here in my home. Kenneth asked her to drop off some papers while she was in the city shopping.”

  “Did you take her up on the offer?”

  “I was severely tempted, I admit,” Ozimas said. “But I have certain scruples; I do not make love to the husbands or wives of business associates.”

  “You’re a gentleman, you are.”

  Another of his laughs. He was a guy who liked to laugh; he had a terrific sense of humor for a crook and a satyr.

  I asked him, “Would you say Mrs. Purcell is capable of murder?”

  “Aren’t we all, given the proper circumstances?”

  “Would Kenneth’s money be her proper circumstances?”

  “I hardly think so. He gave her as much as she wanted while he was alive, allowed her to go and do as she pleased.”

  “Does that include affairs with other men?”

  “Oh yes. Kenneth had affairs, too. Theirs was an open marriage.”

  I asked bluntly, “Did he have an affair with you?”

  The laugh again. “No, no. He was a confirmed heterosexual. He considered homosexuality an aberration and a sickness.”

  “But you and he still got along?”

  “Yes. Ours was a business relationship. One does not have to like one’s business associates to have a mutually satisfactory arrangement.”

  “You mentioned that he had affairs. Any woman in particular?”

  “I don’t know. He seldom discussed his female friends.”

  “How about Mrs. Purcell? Any man in particular?”

  “Not to my knowledge.”

  “Eldon Summerhayes, maybe? You know who he is?”

  “Of course. Was he one of Alicia’s conquests, you mean?”

  “Yes. Was he?”

  “I really couldn’t say. You mi
ght ask her.”

  “Would she tell me?”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised.”

  “How well do you know Summerhayes?”

  “Mostly by reputation. He despises me, I’ve been told.”

  “Is that so? Why?”

  “Because I am wealthy, and a bisexual, and a Filipino.”

  “Have you ever had any business dealings with him?”

  “None. I despise him as much as he despises me.”

  “Would you say he’s honest or dishonest?”

  “A little of both. Aren’t we all?”

  “Not necessarily. How did he and Kenneth get along, do you know?”

  “If you are asking if I consider Summerhayes capable of murder,” Ozimas said, “the answer is yes. My candid opinion is that the man is capable of anything.”

  Birds of a feather, I thought.

  I asked him a few more questions, mainly about Melanie Purcell. None of his answers told me anything new, or gave me any fresh insights. As for the boyfriend, Richie Dessault, Ozimas claimed to know nothing about him, to have never met him. He seemed willing to sit there talking to me all morning, if that was what I wanted. It was the last thing I wanted; he and his apartment and his pretty, jealous, pouting houseboy and his spaced-out platinum blonde made me want to go home and take another shower. I hadn’t even touched the coffee the kid had poured for me. I did not want to drink Ozimas’s coffee and I did not want to put my mouth on one of his cups.

  I stood up finally, and thanked him for his time, and he said, “Not at all. It was my pleasure. If Kenneth was also murdered I certainly want to see the person responsible brought to justice.”

  “You believe in justice, do you?”

  “Naturally.”

  “Sure you do,” I said, and I left him laughing and showed myself out.