Page 100 of Hanging and Burning

23.

THE MATADOR IS a medium-size very fine hotel on the Upper East Side. The nighttime manager owed me a favor from back in the days when I was still a cop. It had to do with a junkie lover of his and how she died in his apartment on the top floor of the six-story building. She’d shot up and when my friend came in the next morning, she was cold to the touch. It wasn’t murder, manslaughter, or any kind of unlawful death—just one of the dangers intrinsic to that particular battlefield of life. I reported the overdose, leaving out Julian St. Claire’s presence and participation. And now he always gave me a bed when I needed to take a break from the school of hard knocks.

All the balls were in the air. Melton and Paulie Jr., Arman and Dalia, Twyla and Gladstone Palmer, the probable assassin Kenneth Rouche and even Mara Macintosh.

What to do? That was the question.

Usually, I came up with answers to questions I put to myself, but not that afternoon.

My cell phone sounded and I answered, “Olo.”

“Hey, Joe. How are you?”

“I’m not bleedin’ and my hands are free from chains.”

“Is that all you need?”

I explained about my juggling metaphor and the place I needed to be in order that I fulfill my promise to my grandmother.

“I could take care of the rapist for you,” she offered.

“Thanks, but I don’t think that would be of much help.”

“But would it be bad for you?”

“I think the problem is this Rouche guy,” I averred, intending to quash any talk of a vigilante nature. “And he’s not connected to Malto as far as I know. It’s Paulie Jr. knows him. He’s the guy who owns Star Shield.”

“I see that on my browser,” Oliya said. “Also, under employment, they say they’re looking for bodyguards, especially of the female variety.”

I grunted. Why hadn’t I thought about that?

“We go out there tonight,” Oliya offered. “And in the morning I could apply for the job.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“Why not?”

“Paulie’s nothing. But this Rouche guy’s a piece’a work.”

“And?”

“If I’m right about him, he likes to inflict pain.”

“You know my boyfriend, right?”

“I’m not talkin’ to Melquarth.”

“I could ask him to go out there with me.”

“I don’t want Mel anywhere near this, and neither do I wanna put you in harm’s way.”

“And I appreciate that you want to take care of me. If I had met you when I was twelve I’d be a different woman today. But as it is, I’m not afraid of this Kenneth Rouche or anybody else. It’s them that need to be afraid.”

And so I found myself on an empty troop-transport jet that night. We departed from Stewart Air Base at around 9:00 p.m. No one asked for identification or names. Olo handed a guard at the entrance a letter that her brigadier general friend had given her. From then on we moved in silence. It was almost as if no one saw us; not the sentries, pilots, or MPs.

When we got to LA, I decided to go back to the Royal Palace Hotel. Kenneth Rouche knew about the place, but I figured it might be useful to have him thinking that he was a step ahead.

Oliya wanted her single room downstairs and Roger Ferris’s suite was paid for year-round. We went our separate ways because there was nothing more to say. She would go to Star Shield in the morning, telling them about her stint at the top-tier International Operatives Agency. If they didn’t hire her, they’d be fools.