The White Gold Score (A Daniel Faust Novella) Read online

  The watch was on my mind, but what I needed was a motive. Odds were, somebody had trailed Monty from LA to Vegas just to put a bullet in his heart. That took planning, from somebody who knew where he’d be and when he’d be there. Ask any homicide cop: nine murders out of ten, you’re looking at a spouse, a family member, or a business partner. Strangers can be trouble, but the person who puts you in the ground probably shook your hand or shared your bed last night.

  A funeral announcement in the Los Angeles Times led me to the brother. Sparse, as memorials went. Monty wasn’t survived by loving parents or a loving spouse, or loving children for that matter. Sounded like his brother was the only family he had. That ruled out a murderous wife or a kid too eager for his inheritance.

  Partners, though, those he had. Plural. Running Monty’s name came up with a fistful of press clippings from his life as an executive producer in the music biz. He’d come up the ranks working with EMI and Universal Music Group, gone indie for a while, then set up his own label two years ago.

  “The music industry,” I deadpanned to the empty room, “that’s a relief. I was afraid he was involved in something sleazy.”

  Coverage of Blue Rhapsody Records, his pet label, was a mixed bag of seedy accomplishments. Monty and company had made a name for themselves by poaching talent from other producers. They’d snagged acts from Roc-a-Fella, Geffen, and eOne, building a stable of hip-hop and R&B performers. In other words, he’d stolen a lot of bread from a lot of rival producers’ mouths and gotten away with it. The list of potential suspects had just gone from zero to at least two dozen.

  Mostly gotten away with it, I thought as one article caught my eye. A piece in NME from last April, detailing a lawsuit from Curtis “Big Rig” Rake, one of Blue Rhapsody’s talents. Misrepresentation, misappropriation of assets, and dodgy accounting, he was throwing the whole book at the label. The piece was scant on details, though, and the quick follow-up breezed over the out-of-court settlement. Blue Rhapsody had canceled Curtis’s contract early, sending him packing with an undisclosed pile of cash and an agreement to keep his mouth shut.

  I needed somebody who knew all the skeletons in Monty Spears’s closet, and it looked like I’d just found him.

  * * *

  When your surrogate dads are a pair of mostly retired con artists, finding an angle is just a phone call away. Or a visit to the homestead. The brass bell above the door to the Scrivener’s Nook jingled as I stepped inside, greeted by the scent of warm cedar and old books. The decor was more suited to an antique shop than a modern bookstore, glass-shaded lamps lighting shelves stuffed with fat tomes ranging from last month to the last century, all jumbled together with no seeming rhyme or reason.

  Bentley, reed-thin and spry for his age, gave a wave from behind the antique cash register. “Daniel,” he said, “you missed quite the evening last night.”

  “Sure, if you like being bored,” Corman grunted. The stocky man lumbered out of the back room, a stack of hardcovers in his arms. “Phantom, shmantom. Not one song in that whole musical worth dancing to.”

  Bentley shot him a look. “It’s Andrew Lloyd Webber. And the vocal stylings of the lead chanteuse were simply divine.”

  “As it happens,” I said, “I saw a phantom of my own last night. Trust me, yours was more fun.”

  I gave them a quick rundown, pausing for Corman’s snort of derision when I told them who’d hired me.

  “Greenbriar? Ain’t worth it, kiddo. If he’s hiring freelancers, it’s something too dirty for him to touch. And there’s not much he won’t touch. You know, that cult he used to run with—”

  “Please,” Bentley said. “We were about to go to lunch. I’d like to keep my appetite intact.”

  I shrugged. “Well, I’ve got two grand in my pocket telling me it’s worth checking out. I figure I take a few days, poke around, see what kind of trouble I can stir up. What’s your angle on the ghost? That routine he pulled, making me live his death—I’ve never seen that before.”

  Bentley held up a finger and stepped out from behind the counter, probing through the stacks.

  “The restless dead—as you learned not too long ago with that poor girl in the tunnels—are difficult to put in neat boxes. Their abilities are as varied as the tethers that keep them from moving on. Cormie, where did I put that von Karajan we bought last month?”

  “Back corner, next to the Danielle Steele paperbacks,” Corman said.

  Bentley met me at the counter with a dusty blue hardcover, thumping it down on the polished wood. Spirits and Their Kynde, by Emil von Karajan. He fluttered through the pages and drew a finger along a faded woodcut illustration, a ragged and eyeless phantom clinging to a diamond necklace.

  “The watch you mentioned, Daniel—I think you’re right. There’s a good chance that returning it will lay him to rest. That or bringing his killer to justice.”

  “Fat chance of the second one happening,” I said. “Greenbriar’s buried the truth. As far as the law is concerned, Monty Spears died of heart failure. Which he technically did, he just had help from a bullet. I figure I track down the shooter, get the watch back, and see if that puts Monty down for the big sleep. If not…well, then we’ll have to get creative.”

  “Sounds like he had a lot of enemies,” Corman said. “What’s your way in?”

  I spread my hands. “That’s what I came to talk about. I need to get up close and personal with some music-industry bigwigs and somehow get ’em to open up to me. Any ideas?”

  Corman snapped his fingers, giving Bentley a smile. “The probate hustle.”

  Bentley lit up. “I think I still have my business cards from the last time! I’ll go check in back.”

  As Bentley scurried off, I tilted my head at Corman. “What’s the play?”

  “Right now, this guy’s will is in probate. That’s where the lawyers prove his will’s legit, do property appraisals, inventory his stuff, and finally divvy up the goods. Usually it’s a pretty straightforward process.”

  “But not this time,” Bentley said as he strode from the back room, brandishing a spread of cream-colored business cards like a winning poker hand. “According to an authority, that is, you, the deceased hired a new lawyer and rewrote his entire will just a month ago. The final version, if it truly is the final version, has…problems. Problems requiring an appointed legal investigator to question his family and business associates.”

  He handed me the cards. Michael Green, read the crisp black type. Investigator, Cowrie & Jet Family Law.

  “What sort of problems?” I asked.

  Corman shook his head. “You can’t say, because it’d violate confidentiality agreements. Don’t even have to make up a story.”

  “And everyone I talk to,” I said, getting the picture, “is going to think I’m there because they’ve been named in Monty’s will, even if I can’t officially say so. Which means if they cooperate, there could be money in it for them.”

  “You got it, kiddo. Play it right and you can string ’em along nice and easy. Drop little hints about what the will might say, and steer the conversation toward the answers you need.”

  “What about the real will, and the real lawyer?”

  “Best to finish your inquiries and leave town before you cross paths,” Bentley said. “This is a handy ruse, but it has a very firm expiration date.”

  “I’m on it.” I tapped the stack of cards. “Where does this number go?”

  Bentley took out his ancient flip phone and held it to his ear. “Cowrie and Jet Family Law, how may I direct your call? Oh, yes, Michael Green? Our finest investigator. Yes, we absolutely vouch for him.”

  “The firm’s a real company—on paper, that is—registered out in Sacramento,” Corman said. “We used it a few times back in the day. Some epic cons, too. Remind me sometime, I’ll tell you a story that’ll make your toes curl. I kept the registration up-to-date for sentimental reasons. Besides, you never know when you’ll need your own law firm.”

>   I pocketed the cards.

  “All right,” I said, “I’m off to sunny LA. Wish me luck.”

  Corman hauled me into a bear hug. “You don’t need luck when you’ve got skill. And we taught you skill. Go get ’em, kiddo.”

  I was on my way to McCarran Airport, nestled in the cracked vinyl seat of a taxi, when Caitlin called.

  “Hey,” I said, “I’m on my way to Los Angeles on a quick job. I’ll be back in a day or two, tops. How’d your thing go?”

  “Just finished,” she replied, sounding pleased. “A job? What sort?”

  I glanced at the taxi driver, stoic in the rearview mirror.

  “The kind I do,” I said.

  “Don’t leave without me,” she said. “Just let me hose off the blood and I’ll meet you at the airport.”

  “Wait, what?”

  “I’m coming with. I want to see what you do for a living.”

  “Cait,” I said, a nervous chuckle on my lips, “you know what I do for a living. That’s how we met.”

  “I said I want to see it. It’ll be fun. Besides, LA is as much my prince’s territory as Vegas is. I need to put in the occasional appearance and make sure the locals are behaving themselves. I’ll make hotel reservations. And dinner. Have you ever eaten at STK Los Angeles? I know the head chef. I’ll handle everything.”

  And that was how my hunt for a killer and a dead man’s Rolex turned into a couple’s vacation. It was the weirdest thing to happen so far that week.

  Things got weirder, fast.

  5.

  Something in Caitlin’s smile always threw me off my step. Something more than her graceful strength, more than her confidence. She had the eyes of a woman who gazed out over the entire world and liked what she saw. An air of perpetual, quiet amusement. Her clothes were casual chic today, her scarlet hair done up in a long, twisting braid, and she rolled a white leather Prada carry-on as she crossed the concourse to meet me.

  I leaned in for a quick kiss that left me wanting more, and glanced down at the pale curve of her hand. “Ahem.”

  She arched an eyebrow at me. I nodded downward, to the streak of rusty crimson splashed along her wrist.

  “Oh.” She blinked and looked for the nearest washroom. “Missed a spot. Watch my luggage? I’ll be right back.”

  So I watched her luggage.

  “You know,” I said as we checked in at an electronic kiosk—and she promptly upgraded both of our tickets to first class, “you really don’t have to do this.”

  “Have to? Who said anything about ‘have to’? Is it so hard to fathom that I might find your work interesting?”

  “Kind of.” I shrugged. “It’s a little mundane compared to what you do.”

  She laughed. “Daniel, ninety-nine percent of my career is paperwork, red tape, and bureaucracy. Sure, sometimes I get to spice things up with an invigorating bout of…corrective discipline, but it’s really not that different from any other corporate job. I make rules for a living and ensure they are upheld. You break rules for a living. It’s an intriguing notion.”

  “Oh, I get it now.” I raised my chin, squinted my eyes, and did my best Clint Eastwood impression. “I’m a renegade. An outsider who lives by his own code. An American outlaw.”

  She paused, looking me up and down.

  “What?”

  “I was just trying to imagine how you’d look on a motorcycle.” She shook her head. “Don’t buy a motorcycle. Not a good look for you.”

  I didn’t do much flying, and when I did, it was generally coach seating. I had to admit, I could get used to a first-class lifestyle. Steaming-hot hand towels and a nice glass of red to make the flight go smoothly—it sure beat the hell out of stale peanuts. We touched down at LAX right around two, soaring in from a hazy yellow sky. Smog warnings were in full effect, but I didn’t need the signs posted at the airport doors to tell me: I felt it the second we stepped out into the hot, muggy afternoon air, like a splash of quick-set concrete drying in my lungs.

  “So what’s our first stop?” Caitlin asked me, slipping on a pair of designer shades.

  “Curtis Rake looks like my best bet. That lawsuit alleged all kinds of nastiness at Monty’s label, and they paid him to stay quiet before he could spill all the details. If I can get him to open up, it might tell me who had a genuine motive to take Monty out. Lots of possibilities out there, but there’s a big difference between hating somebody and hating ’em enough to commit murder.”

  Caitlin wrinkled her nose. “‘Big Rig’ Rake? Ugh. I’ve heard his music. Dire twaddle. I’ll go take care of some local business of my own. Call me when you’re done and we’ll meet up for dinner.”

  “Not a hip-hop fan?”

  “Of course I am. From the eighties. When it was good.”

  I tilted my head at her as we stepped into the cab line. “Somehow I can’t picture you getting down to Public Enemy.”

  She adjusted her sunglasses, replying in a somber deadpan, “I am an old-school player.”

  “I stand corrected.”

  “Yes, well, you’d best recognize. See you tonight, pet.”

  She had a point. Curtis’s big single, “Booty Thumpin’,” might have been burning up the charts, but the tune was as disposable as Styrofoam padding. What he lacked in deathless poetry, he made up for with sales acumen. Tracking him down was easier than I thought. I called up his rep, who put me through to a higher rep, who put me through to his personal secretary, who had his personal secretary call me back.

  “Mr. Rake has had no contact with Mr. Spears since their lawsuit was resolved,” the admin told me, her tone like an iron wall. “He has nothing to say on the record and, in fact, is restricted from doing so by the terms of his settlement agreement.”

  “This isn’t about the lawsuit,” I said. “It’s purely about Mr. Spears’s will and the distribution of his assets.”

  “And Mr. Rake is…named in this will?”

  “I can’t explicitly say that. I can say, however, that he’s material to the probate investigation. All I’m asking for is ten minutes of Mr. Rake’s time. No recordings, nothing in writing, completely off the record.”

  A long pause. The sound of muffled voices, one hand cupped over the phone.

  “Ten minutes,” she said. “Come to Mr. Rake’s home. I’ll text you the address.”

  I let out a long, low whistle as my taxi took a turn off Mulholland Drive and cruised through the Hollywood Hills. Curtis Rake lived in Outpost Estates, where mansions sprawled in the sun behind towering walls, an armed guard at every iron gate. The kind of place where money became an abstract concept, no longer a measurement of what you could buy—because if you could afford to live here, you could pretty much have anything you wanted.

  Including hired guns, I thought. I didn’t consider Curtis a prime suspect—his beef with Monty Spears had been loud and personal, but it had ended in what I could only imagine was a healthy payoff and a clean parting of the ways. Even so, nobody was off the hook until I’d checked him out personally.

  Curtis’s estate was done up in the style of an old Tuscan villa, with low-pitched salmon roofs and stone-and-stucco walls, nestled safely behind a security perimeter that put the White House to shame. Guards met the taxi as it pulled up at the curb. One radioed ahead to the house, and the other gestured for me to raise my arms for a pat-down. I obliged, holding back my annoyance as he plucked the phone from my pocket.

  “You get this back when you leave,” he said. “When Mr. Rake agrees to speak off the record, it’s off the record. No photos, no recordings.”

  “That’s fine,” I told him.

  He tugged my deck of cards from my back pocket. Cherry-red Bicycle Dragon Backs. He opened the pack, frowning.

  “What’s this for?”

  “Card tricks,” I told him.

  He gave the deck back. Good. On the off chance that things went sideways with Curtis, I wasn’t unarmed. When I’ve got my cards handy, I don’t need a gun.

 
The guards drove me up to the house on a golf cart. Not to the main entrance, but to a side door and a long alabaster hallway lined with gold records.

  I eyed the awards as we walked. “No platinum yet, huh?”

  “You seen how his new single’s doing?” the guard asked. “He’ll get there.”

  Curtis was hard at work in his home studio, headphones on and laying down a thumping track that echoed over ceiling-mounted speakers. He was a powerhouse of a man, built like a grizzly bear but with a kinetic energy that belied his bulk. On our side of the glass, a spindly kid in a Lakers jersey worked the console, fingers dancing over a row of sliders like a virtuoso. The kid spotted me and killed the music.

  Curtis tugged off his headphones and shrugged. “What up?”

  The kid gestured my way and leaned into a microphone jutting from the console. “That lawyer guy’s here. Besides, man, you’ve been at it for four hours. Take a break.”

  “Be at it for eight hours, if that’s what it takes to make the track right.” Curtis pushed through the glass door, joining us in the mixing room.

  “Yeah, and when you fry your voice, don’t cry to me about it.”

  “Fair, fair.” Curtis looked me up and down. “Yeah, okay, why don’t you take a few laps in the pool or something. I’m gonna talk to this guy a little.”

  He gripped my hand like a steel vise, a look of challenge in his eyes. Proving he was the alpha dog in the room. I let him believe it.

  “Thanks for meeting with me, Mr.…Rig?”

  He laughed. “Nah, call me Curtis. Big Rig’s who I am on stage. Gotta say, last thing I’d expect is a shout-out in Monty’s will. I agreed to meet outta curiosity more than anything else.”

  “Well, I can’t officially say you’ve been named as a beneficiary, you understand.”