Hotline to Murder (6 page)

“You don’t really believe I killed Joy,”
Tony said getting hot despite his attempt to stay cool. He felt
sweat forming in his armpits.

“What I think is that Detective Croyden
should be asking these questions,” Shahla said. “But since he
isn’t, maybe you and I should.”

“Does that mean I’m exonerated?”

“For the time being. But only because you
don’t appear to have a motive. However, in this kind of case, when
the murderer is finally caught, the neighbors always say, ‘But he
was such a nice boy. He couldn’t have done it.’ So we have to look
for hidden motives.”

Tony was able to chuckle. “I think you’ve
got a career all mapped out in the district attorney’s office.”

“Actually, I’m going to be a writer. But I
may write true crime. And I may have my…” Shahla became choked up
and couldn’t continue for a moment, “…first story.”

“You have to be careful about doing your own
investigating. What if you asked the real killer for an alibi? What
do you think he’d do to you?”

Tears welled up in Shahla’s eyes and started
running down her cheeks. Tony had an urge to comfort her, to touch
her, to hold her. He knew that was the wrong thing to do. Empathy,
not sympathy. He said, “This must be very diff….” He’d already said
that. He gave her a tissue from a box on one of the tables.

Shahla wiped her eyes and said, “When I
heard about Joy, I didn’t believe it. It still doesn’t seem real.
She can’t be gone.”

The phone rang. Tony reached for it, but
Shahla said, “I’ll get it,” and answered before Tony could. She
immediately placed the call on the speaker. She pressed the mute
button and said, “It’s him.”

The caller was saying, “…advice on how to
prevent what happened to Joy from happening to you.”

“What’s your advice?” Shahla asked.

“You girls need to wear more clothes. When
you walk around strutting your stuff, showing off your body,
wearing tight short skirts up to your butt, with no underwear,
you’re asking for it.”

It was an inappropriate call. The Hotline
rules said to hang up at this point. But it was obvious that Shahla
had no intention of hanging up.

She had the Chameleon’s page from the Green
Book open in front of her. She said, “Is this Fred?” using one of
several names the Chameleon had previously given Hotline
listeners.

There was silence at the other end of the
line. Shahla said, “I need to call you something. Is it okay if I
call you Fred?”

More silence. Then the caller said, “All
right. Tell me, Sally, are you wearing underwear?”

“Are you on a cell phone, Fred?” There was a
pause, and Shahla said, “Fred, talk to me.”

“How did you know?”

“I’m clairvoyant. Are you at work?”

Tony was reading the Green Book over
Shahla’s shoulder. Did he really work as a security guard?

“What makes you think that?”

“Just a guess. Where do you work?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“You sound like an interesting person. I was
hoping we could get together.”

Tony was disturbed by what Shahla was doing,
but he knew if he cut off the call, she would hate him forever.

There was silence on the line. Tony and
Shahla looked at each other. Tony found himself holding his
breath.

“Are you on the level?” The voice was almost
plaintive.

“What do you think, Fred?”

Shahla’s answer was brilliant. Let him draw
his own conclusion. The imaginations of the callers didn’t work
like those of “normal” people. He might convince himself that she
was interested in him.

“Well, I don’t know.”

Tony suspected that Fred, or whatever his
name was, had problems relating to women in real life.

“What time do you get off work?” Shahla
asked.

“Midnight.”

“And what’s your cell phone number?”

After a hesitation, Fred reeled off an area
code and seven-digit number. Tony quickly wrote it down and mouthed
to Shahla to have him repeat it. She asked him again, and he gave
the same number a second time.

Then Shahla said, “Where shall we meet?”

Another hesitation. Then he gave an
intersection. Tony wrote down the names of the streets while Shahla
verified them with Fred.

“Shall we say 12:15?” Shahla asked.

“All right. Listen, I gotta go.”

The line went dead. Shahla looked jubilant.
“We got him,” she almost sang. She danced around the room.

“Not so fast, young lady.” Tony was alarmed
at Shahla’s reaction. “First of all, we don’t know whether the
information he gave us is correct. But in any case, we have to pass
it along to Detective Croyden.” He pulled the detective’s card out
of his wallet.

“No. Croyden is at home with his wife and
kids. We can’t blow this.”

“Somebody will be on duty. I’ll call
them.”

Tony lifted a telephone receiver, but Shahla
grabbed it at the same time. They froze, with Tony sitting and
Shahla standing. Each had one hand on the receiver. Their hands
partially overlapped.

Tony’s first inclination was to jerk the
receiver or yell at Shahla, but with an effort, he brought himself
under control. Then he became conscious of the touch of her hand on
his. He couldn’t let that affect him, either. He said, “What do you
think we should do?”

“Meet him.”

“Us? Together?”

“Sure. If they’re two of us, we’ll be
safe.”

“It isn’t going to happen. First of all,
you’re not going anywhere except home. You’ve got school tomorrow.
And how would I explain to your parents that I was running around
the back streets of El Segundo at midnight with their underage
daughter? Second, we’re going to turn this over to the police.”

Shahla kept her grip on the receiver and
Tony’s hand. She said, “Tony, the police will screw this up.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Because…because. It was…it’s too long a
story, but you can believe me when I say that I don’t trust the
police.”

He finally heard himself saying, much
against his better judgment, “All right, this is what I’ll do.” He
looked at his watch, which was on his left or unengaged hand, to
gain time. It was almost ten o’clock. “We’ll close up shop, and
you’ll go home. I will meet Fred, the Chameleon, at the designated
time and place.”

“I’m going with you.”

“No, Shahla, you’re not.”

“You’ll get hurt going all alone.”

“My roommate has a gun. I’ll take it with
me.”

They stared at each other, neither one
moving. If this is a test of wills, Tony thought, I’ve got to
persevere. I’m responsible for her safety.

Shahla said, “So you aren’t going to call
the police?”

“No.”

Shahla relaxed her grip on the receiver and
his hand. Slowly she pulled her hand away. Slowly he hung up the
receiver.

Shahla scribbled on a piece of paper and
handed it to him. “This is my cell phone number. Promise you’ll
call me when you get back.”

“Who knows what time that will be? You’ll be
asleep. And I’ll wake up your parents.”

“No you won’t. I have my own room. And I
won’t be asleep. I’ll be waiting.”

“That’s a really bad idea. What if I forget
to call?”

“I’ll go crazy. So promise you’ll call,
okay? Even though we’ve just met, I don’t want to lose
another…friend. I’ll worry until you call.”

Tony felt trapped. “All right, I’ll call
you.”

Shahla gave him a hug so quick he wasn’t
sure it had really happened.

CHAPTER 7

Beams from a streetlight filtered through tree
leaves to where Tony sat in his car, like water seeping through a
membrane, providing just enough light so that it wasn’t pitch black
inside the car. He had picked this spot for its darkness. The car
would just be an innocuous shadow to a person standing at the
intersection, fifty feet away, and he would be invisible to that
person. The intersection itself was much better lit, with
streetlights on two corners.

Tony was nervous. He caught himself lifting
his chin in a basketball head-fake movement. Except that he had
never been very good at basketball, because of his lack of height.
The head-fake, which appeared when he was under stress, was modeled
after that of one of the all-time greats, Elgin Baylor, who he had
seen play only in videos, never in real life. Elgin was now an
executive with the Los Angeles Clippers, a hapless professional
basketball team that was not to be confused with the many-times NBA
champion Los Angeles Lakers that Elgin had once played for.

He looked at his watch. He could just barely
see the hands. Ten minutes past twelve. Five minutes to the meeting
time with Fred the Chameleon. But Fred expected a juicy teenage
girl, not a slightly overweight male marketing manager. What was he
going to do if Fred actually showed? He only had a vague plan.

What was he doing here, anyway? Why had he
given in to Shahla? At least he had done one thing right; he had
not let her come with him. That would have been a disaster. It
wasn’t that he was afraid. Well, not very afraid, anyway. El
Segundo just wasn’t a very scary place. It wasn’t an upscale
community like Bonita Beach, but the few people he had seen on the
street didn’t look like hoods or gangbangers.

He had Josh’s gun, a nine-millimeter. And it
was loaded. He had fired it only one time when he had gone with
Josh to a firing range. But Josh had given him a quick review, and
he felt fairly confident about using it. He patted the hard bulk
stuck in his belt, underneath the sport coat he had donned, and
wondered for the tenth time whether the safety was really on so
that he wouldn’t accidentally shoot himself in the balls.

Josh had been surprisingly good about not
asking too many questions. Tony had told him he had a midnight
meeting, about which he was somewhat apprehensive because of the
location, but he hadn’t mentioned that it was in connection with
Joy’s murder. Josh would have volunteered to come along, and
knowing him, Tony was afraid he might cause trouble. Josh pictured
himself as a vigilante.

Tony heard footsteps as somebody approached
from behind and walked past his car on the sidewalk. He froze,
wondering whether he was really invisible. At least he was on the
other side of the car from the pedestrian. And it was difficult to
see into a Porsche with the convertible top down. As the person
came into his field of vision, Tony saw that he was a man wearing
jeans and a light jacket, possibly leather, against the Los Angeles
night chill. He was also wearing a baseball cap. He walked rapidly,
his body slouched, his hands in his pockets.

Did he look like somebody who was expecting
to meet a girl he didn’t know? Not really. He looked furtive, like
a person who was afraid of human contact. Tony watched to see if he
turned the corner or crossed the street when he got to the
intersection, but he didn’t. He stopped under the streetlight and
glanced quickly around. He reminded Tony of a small animal watching
for enemies.

Was this the infamous Chameleon? He did look
weird, but not dangerous. He was thin and his slouch made him look
short. Tony couldn’t see his hair because of the cap. He was too
far away, and it was too dark for Tony to get a look at his
face.

It was time for Tony to execute his plan,
what plan he had. He pulled out his cell phone. The dial lit up, in
response to his touch, and he entered the number Fred had given to
Shahla. He pressed the Send button. The phone rang in his ear. The
man on the corner gave no indication that his cell phone was
ringing, and Tony couldn’t hear another ring, if there was one,
even though his window was cracked open.

After several rings, an answering service
came on the line. A male voice said, “This is…” and gave the
telephone number Tony had attempted to enter. “You know what to
do,” the voice continued. Then there was a beep.

Tony pressed the button to end the call. The
man on the corner hadn’t moved. Either he had ignored the call or
he didn’t have his cell phone with him. The third alternative, of
course, was that Fred had given Shahla a bogus number. Was the
voice on the phone Fred’s voice? Possibly. But Tony wasn’t certain.
It didn’t sound quite the same as the voice he had heard at the
Hotline. And not only did Fred have many different voices,
according to the Green Book, but the reception on this phone and
the office phones also had some built-in distortion.

Tony had done all he could. It was time for
him to leave. But he didn’t want to start his engine with the man
standing there. The man would know that Tony had been watching him
and might be startled into doing—what? Now the man was smoking a
cigarette. Tony looked at his watch and thought he read the time as
12:20.

His anxiety level grew. He couldn’t wait
here forever. And he had the uncomfortable feeling that he should
be doing more, with the man still in sight. He made a decision. He
quietly opened his car door, just as another car went through the
intersection and masked the noise. He stepped out as his heartbeat
accelerated. He left the door ajar so that the sound of it closing
wouldn’t alert the man.

However, Tony also didn’t want to sneak up
on him. He stepped up onto the sidewalk and started to approach the
man, deliberately making noise with his sneakers slapping the
pavement, trying to give the effect that he had been walking for
some time. The man couldn’t fail to hear him.

The man didn’t turn around as Tony
approached, but he did raise his head. A frightened animal,
listening. He dropped his cigarette on the ground and stamped on
it. Then he abruptly started walking across the street. Fast. Still
slouching, but his hands weren’t in his pockets. As he reached the
other side, he turned around and took one quick look at Tony. Then
he redoubled his pace, along the street at right angles to the one
on which Tony was parked. He didn’t look back again.