Fall Down Easy Read online

  Eighteen seventy-four was off to his left, at the far end of the corridor. The door was wide open and there was a sweeping view of Coal Harbour — or would’ve been, if not for the broad shoulders of the uniform guarding the door.

  Willows offered a quick glimpse of his badge as he brushed past him.

  The suite had two bathrooms. He found Claire Parker sitting on the edge of the tub in the ensuite, searching Mendez’s toiletry kit.

  Parker glanced up at him, smiled. “Morning, Jack.”

  “Morning, Claire.”

  “Pasta de dientes, what’s that sound like to you?”

  Willows shrugged. Parker held up a green and white striped tube of toothpaste.

  “How about this, hoja de afeitar?” She gave him a nice smile. “Razor-blades. The techs are in the master bedroom, hunting for prints. Mendez’s passport was hidden — if that’s the right word — under the mattress. Along with a couple of thousand in cash, a loaded Beretta and spare magazine, a few lines of coke and the machete.”

  Willows said, “Even if it was none of my business, I couldn’t help wondering how Mendez managed to get to sleep at night.”

  “There are worse things to share your bed with.”

  “I’ll take your word for it.”

  Parker dumped the razor-blades and toothpaste back in the kitbag. She said, “There was a quart of chocolate milk and a dozen mixed donuts on the table in the dining alcove. Also a pocket calculator. The milk had soured and the donuts were stale, but the calculators batteries were just as good as new, despite the fact that whoever’d last used it hadn’t bothered to turn it off.”

  “And?”

  “And the numbers on the screen were a five and five zeros, followed by a decimal point.”

  “Five hundred thousand.”

  “Right.”

  “Dollars?”

  “Or calories,” said Parker. “By the way, there’s fresh coffee in the machine in the kitchen.”

  “All the comforts of home. More, in fact.”

  Parker stood up, moved towards him. Willows backed out of the doorway. Parker walked slowly past him, into the bedroom.

  Willows said, “We call them, or did they call us?”

  “The maid found the stuff under the mattress when she was changing the sheets. She called a bellhop, he called security. Security called management and you can guess the rest.”

  “The panic bone’s connected to the cop bone.”

  Parker gave him an odd look. “Maybe you better have a coffee before we get rolling on this.”

  “I thought you’d never ask.”

  “Or if you’re hungry, breakfast is on the house.”

  Willows stared at her. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

  Parker said, “Always.”

  “True enough,” said Willows, smiling. He phoned room service, ordered breakfast and began to prowl around the luxurious hotel suite. There was a Panamanian passport with Mendez’s photograph but somebody else’s name hidden in the kitchen, taped to the back of the fridge. Under “occupation” he’d written Policia. Parker discovered a small quantity of cocaine hidden in a spare toilet paper roll in the bathroom.

  She said, “That’s a new one. Smart, too. Even if Mendez’s prints were all over the roll, there’s no way you could take him to court.”

  “We couldn’t take him to court if we found a couple of kilos of Peruvian flake in his hip pocket,” Willows said. “He’s dead, remember?”

  Parker said, “Why would he keep a machete under his bed?”

  “Chopping the coke?”

  “Or maybe he was taking a correspondence course — learning to be a barber.”

  The man who delivered Willows’ scrambled eggs and toast was in his mid-fifties, wore a grey three-piece silk suit, pale blue shirt and a splashy tie. He peered at Willows through tinted glasses as he placed the tray on the table at the foot of the bed, offered his hand.

  “Edward Mullholland, the hotel manager. Security informs me that Mr Mendez had a perfectly valid reason for failing to keep his account up to date.”

  Willows introduced himself, Parker. He said, “Had Mendez stayed at the hotel before this, Mr Mullholland?”

  The manager nodded. “He was a regular, for the past three years he phoned from Panama and made a reservation every three months. Always for this suite. He usually stayed with us for one or two nights, never more than three.”

  “What can you tell us about him?”

  “Not much, really. In this business, it doesn’t pay to be too inquisitive.” Mullholland’s eyes strayed to Parker, back to Willows. “I believe Mr Mendez mentioned that he was in the business of purchasing farm machinery. Let me see, what else can I tell you … He dressed well, his English was more than adequate. Oh yes, one other thing — he always arrived in a limo.”

  Willows drained his glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice, poured himself a cup of coffee, sprinkled a little pepper on his eggs, dug in.

  “Everything all right?”

  Willows nodded, his mouth full. The manager seemed genuinely concerned.

  Parker said, “Did Mr Mendez ever meet anyone here, at the hotel?”

  Mullholland hesitated. “How do you mean?”

  Willows swallowed and said, “What she means is — did Mendez ever meet anyone at the hotel.”

  “No, he didn’t.”

  “Did anyone accompany him to the hotel?”

  “This is a very large hotel, Detective Willows. As you can well imagine, people come and go. It would be impossible for us to keep track of all our guests, even if we wanted to.” Willows glanced at Parker. They waited.

  Mullholland said, “However, there was a young woman who usually stayed with him whenever he was in town … ”

  “What’s her name?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know.”

  Parker said, “What did she look like?”

  “Well, let me think. She was young, in her early twenties. A blonde, very attractive … ”

  Parker wrote it all down, and by the time Mullholland ran out of steam she had, although she wasn’t aware of it, a fairly accurate description of Samantha Ross.

  Willows said, “But you don’t know her name, never heard Mendez speak to her … ”

  “No, I’m afraid not. Mr Mendez wasn’t the type who loitered in the lobby, or cared to make small talk with the staff.”

  “You’d have records, wouldn’t you, of outgoing phone calls he made during the past few days?”

  “He never used the telephones provided in the suite. He may have used one of the pay phones in the lobby, but I never saw him do so.”

  Parker said, “How many times has Mendez stayed at the hotel, altogether?”

  “Eleven.”

  “And your records indicate that he never once used the telephone?”

  “That’s correct”

  “What about incoming calls?”

  “I’m afraid we don’t keep a record of calls directed to the hotel, unless the caller leaves a message with the switchboard.”

  Parker nodded. She said, “Jack, can you think of anything else?”

  Willows shook his head, dug a card out of his wallet, handed it to Mullholland.

  Parker said, “If you happen to think of anything, no matter how insignificant it may seem, please call us right away, all right?”

  “Yes, certainly.”

  Parker helped herself to a triangle of whole wheat toast from Willows’ tray. “If you don’t mind, we’ll just poke around a little while longer and then be on our way.”

  “Fine, certainly.”

  Parker waited until the uniform at the door had let Mullholland out, and then turned to Willows and said, “What d’you think?”

  Willows said, “No question, it’s the best blackberry jam I’ve had in my life. No preservatives. Better try some, before it goes off.”

  “I mean about Mullholland.”

  “By the time you’d finished with him he looked like he got an eye
transplant from a cocker spaniel.”

  Parker gave Willows an exasperated look. “I mean, what do you think of him as a source of information?”

  “As a source of information, he’s the very soul of discretion. Does a pretty fair bellhop, though.”

  Parker nodded in agreement, but her mind was on the bed. She’d thought king-size was as big as they got; the one Mendez had hidden his guns and drugs and money under was half again as wide. What kind of person always used limos instead of taxis, and slept with a machete under the mattress? The suite’s refrigerator had been stuffed full of litre bottles of champagne. A dozen identical off-white linen suits, all of them brand new, hung in the closet. There was also a shopping bag full of unopened gift boxes of women’s silk underwear in the closet, with receipts totalling over a thousand dollars.

  Parker glanced through the bedroom doorway, saw that the cop at the door had his nose between the covers of one of the suite’s complimentary magazines — Vanity Fair. She kicked off her shoes and stretched out on the bed, spread her arms wide and couldn’t reach the sides.

  Willows wiped his mouth with a linen napkin.

  Parker gave him a saucy smile. “What do you think?” Before Willows could respond, she said, “I mean about Mendez.”

  Willows held the used napkin aloft, as if to perform a magic trick. He said, “Looks as if he might’ve been in the laundry business.”

  “Funnelling drug money through Martin Ross.”

  Willows balled up the napkin and tossing it on the serving tray, nodded.

  Parker said, “Mendez flies into town, gets rid of the cash. He and his girlfriend spend a couple of days celebrating — drinking champagne, shopping, drinking some more champagne.” She slipped a goose-down pillow under her head.

  “It’s a rotten job, but I guess somebody has to do it.” Willows said, “The thing is, where’s his return ticket?”

  “Somewhere else,” said Parker, “I can tell you that much because I know it isn’t here.”

  Willows said, “Maybe he didn’t have a return ticket. Maybe this time he didn’t plan on going back.”

  Parker closed her eyes. With every step you took, the perspective changed, the situation was altered. If Mendez had planned a cash withdrawal of half a million dollars, Martin Ross would certainly have known about it, if he was involved. Maybe Ross didn’t want Mendez to empty the accounts — or maybe Ross had abused his powers of office and spent the money. So he had Mendez killed. No, that wasn’t possible. The shooting in the bank was just bad luck.

  But it was time they had another talk with Ross. Do it at 312 Main this time, maybe.

  The bed was very comfortable, the mattress not too soft and not too firm. Parker opened her eyes.

  Willows quickly looked away.

  Eleven

  Martin Ross hit the remote and the iron gates to his driveway swung wide. A hinge creaked ominously but Ross couldn’t hear anything over the sound of the radio and the steady whoosh of the Imperial’s climate control system, which had turned the car into a refrigerator on wheels but had failed to lower his sweat production by so much as a single drop. His handkerchief was drenched. When he wiped his forehead it felt slushy.

  The gates swung shut behind him. The garage door gaped open. He eased the big car inside, past Samantha’s white four-wheel drive Samurai, her motorcycle — thank God that phase was over — her skis, her snowboard, the thousand-dollar mountain bike that she rode around the block the day she bought it, but hadn’t used since. It felt like he was parking in somebody’s sporting goods department, rather than his own garage.

  He got out of the car, triggered the alarm, checked the door to make sure it was locked.

  Music from somewhere deep inside the house thumped against him, seemed to push him back. Then the sound died and a silence fell upon him. She must have seen the car turn in off the street, he supposed. He became aware of an irregular ticking sound coming from under the hood, a sound like the last few seconds in the life of a bomb. He knew it was only the engine cooling down, metal contracting. But even so, he had to lean against the Chrysler’s fender for a moment, while he struggled to get himself under control.

  He made his way around the car, climbed the short flight of stairs to the door that led to the laundry room and then the kitchen.

  Samantha was there to greet him, help him off with his jacket, loosen his tie. A little more than twenty-four hours had passed since the hold-up, but it was clear to her that he was still suffering the after-effects of the shock and strain.

  Was he all right? He nodded, gave her a reassuring smile. She gave him a doubting look, then reached up and dragged a fingertip across his forehead. Did he have a temperature? He told her he was just fine and dandy. She told him supper was ready, hesitated, and then asked him if he wanted to take a shower before he ate.

  She was wearing black again, a tight black sleeveless T-shirt, tight black jeans and a wide black leather belt, black running shoes with the laces removed. He hated it when she wore black. Worse, he’d once made the mistake of telling her how he felt.

  He said, “Do I need a shower?”

  “You certainly do. Want me to run the water for you?”

  “No, honey, I don’t.”

  Samantha followed her father out of the kitchen and up the stairs to the second floor, along the hall as far as the bedroom door. It was the first time she’d had a chance to talk to him since the robbery, and she pelted him with questions. The radio had said an innocent bystander had been shot dead, but on television they said there’d actually been a shoot-out between the bank robber and the victim. What was the truth? Ross said he didn’t want to talk about it. He told her she knew as much as he did, maybe more.

  When he came downstairs, supper was waiting for him. Samantha had opened a bottle of red wine. She filled his glass to the brim, but barely wet the bottom of her own glass.

  Ross chewed, swallowed, chewed, swallowed.

  Samantha said, “Like it?”

  “Excellent.”

  “It’s boeuf bourgignon.”

  “So I noticed.”

  “I cooked it myself. In the microwave.”

  “Very impressive.”

  “Wait’ll you see dessert.”

  “I can hardly wait.”

  Samantha toyed with her food. If she ever actually ate anything, it wasn’t in his presence. She said, “I had a visitor this afternoon.”

  Ross stared at her. She sipped at her wine, licked her lips. Finally he said, “Anyone I know?”

  “Possibly.”

  Something liquid and glittering fell into his plate. He glanced up, at the crystal chandelier suspended above the table.

  Samantha said, “You’re sweating again. Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “I told you, I’m fine.”

  “Do you want me to get a thermometer?”

  Ross pushed the food away. He said, “Who was it? Who was here?”

  She smiled. “I think it’s about time you told me about the robbery.”

  “Samantha … ”

  She cocked her head. “Yes, Daddy?”

  Samantha had been in bed, asleep, by the time he’d gotten home the night of the robbery, and she’d still been sleeping when he’d gone back to work that morning. She’d phoned him at the office after watching a report about the hold-up on television, but he’d told her he didn’t have time to talk and quickly disconnected. Now he said, “I don’t have much I can tell you, I’m afraid. By the time I realized something was going on, it was all over.” He leaned back in his chair. The boeuf bourgignon had a glazed look, as if it had been sprayed with liquid plastic.

  “You didn’t see anything?”

  “A lot of unhappy people, but that’s about it.”

  “Did you see the robber?”

  “The police think he was wearing a disguise, some sort of mask, or theatrical makeup.

  “Is it true that a man was killed?”

  “Yes.”

  Sama
ntha picked at her food, moving it about on her plate. Her next question caught Ross by surprise. “Do you know any police detectives?”

  Ross smiled. “I met quite a few yesterday, let me tell you.”

  “This one was fairly tall, medium build, dark wavy hair combed straight back … ”

  Ross shook his head. “Doesn’t ring any bells.”

  “He said his name was Erickstad. He had a badge, but I didn’t get a very good look at it. I don’t know what it was about him, but somehow he didn’t seem … ” Samantha hesitated, then said, “authentic.”

  Ross pushed his plate a little further away, leaned forward. “I don’t understand. What do you mean?”

  “After he left, I phoned the police department and asked to speak to him and they told me there was nobody by that name on the force.”

  Ross saw that his wine glass was empty, managed to pour himself a refill.

  Samantha said, “On TV today they said the victim’s identity is still unknown.”

  Ross got most of the wine down, but his hands were unsteady, and he spilled a little.

  She said, “But we know who he is, don’t we?”

  Ross’s stomach felt as if he’d swallowed a Ferris wheel. The wheel spun faster and faster, spun him back to the first time he’d met Garcia Lorca Mendez in person, the ride Mendez had given him across town in a borrowed stretch limo to a steam vent tucked away in the shadows of an eastside viaduct. The wheel kept spinning and he saw the Panamanian reach down and haul a derelict out of his cocoon of scrap foam and bits of cardboard, drag him moaning and crying down a concrete slope into an open area below the viaduct, shove the man’s arm up against a concrete pillar, the machete glide up into the light and the derelict’s mouth open in a toothless scream … Steel striking sparks off concrete.

  “Muy bonita,” said Mendez. “One chop, eh? Off she comes.” He studied the machete’s blade, rubbed the ball of his thumb across a nick in the polished steel. High above them, traffic thundered across the viaduct. Mendez cocked his head, listening, then glanced at the derelict, who had either fainted or died, and now lay on his side on the filthy concrete. “He’s only a bum, but you gotta admit he handle the situation pretty good, huh?”

  Mendez slapped the banker with the flat of the blade, left a smear of blood on his cheek. “Look at him!”