Domino Page 18

  "Look, I just need a phone."

  "What if you can't reach your friend?" Phillips slid her hand slowly into the back pocket of her skirt. Clarissa tensed. "You don't want to spend another night here do you?"

  "No," Clarissa whispered.

  "Harvard House is cleaner and the beds are better than this thing," Phillips indicated the cot-like bed. "All women, it's safe at night, don't have to worry about being ripped off, two meals a day. Why don't you let me put you in that shelter? They even let you make local calls on the office phone and they'll take messages for you if calls come in. I have a few night's worth of slips for Harvard House. They're yours, Miss Dugan."

  The inspector's eyes were piercing and evil and full of malice like Marco's. A cold paralysis seeped into Clarissa's limbs, her legs were weak with terror. She was conscious of the pounding rain outside, of the smell of damp garbage coming from the alley below. An alley so many years ago flashed across her mind. She wanted to scream, but she could not force sound from her lips.

  "I think you should go, Miss Phillips," she whispered.

  She should have run while she had the chance, while the door was still open. Clarissa looked at the door longingly and prayed that Dusty would come back. Phillips smiled and reached out to give Clarissa the chits for Harvard House”.

  "Dusty will be back," she said.

  "Do you think that old man cares what goes on in these room?" Phillips said.

  "I don't want your other shelter," Clarissa cried. "I'm happy here. Just leave me alone."

  "Miss Dugan" she whispered. "Those women are not evil. They are a caring, loving community. They don’t care if you’re gay or straight, using or strung out. They only want to help. They truly care."

  "Miss Phillips?" Dusty's voice was farther down the hall. "I have that receipt."

  "Dusty!" Clarissa cried."

  "Miss Dugan?" Dusty said as he knocked lightly on her door.

  Phillips reached into her pocket and pulled out the slips for the other shelter. She thrust them at Clarissa who took them carefully and tucked them into her shirt pocket.

  "If you change your mind, Miss Dugan," Phillips said.

  Phillips took the papers Dusty offered her and scanned them briefly. She tucked the umbrella neatly under her arm and without looking up at Clarissa she said, "At least you'd be safe, Miss Dugan. Give that some serious thought.”

  “Thank you,” Clarissa said quietly. “Really, thank you.” Tears welled up in Clarissa’s eyes and suddenly the room became close and oppressive.

  Clarissa bolted past Dusty and the inspector and ran down the hallway.

  "Strange woman," Dusty scratched his head. "Kind of high strung, if you ask me.

  "Nobody's asking you," Phillips said as she handed Dusty back the papers.

  CHAPTER 10

  The pretty blond receptionist glanced up as Marco walked into the lobby of the executive offices of Roth Galleries. She looked genuinely relieved when the phone rang at that very moment and she was not required to further acknowledge the disturbing visitor. Marco headed toward Wolfe's office. The gallery offices were quiet and sullen except for an occasional phone that rang or a computer printer that rattled out some closing statements.

  A couple of secretaries talked in hushed whispers around the water cooler and an elderly man in his glass enclosed office was putting the contents of his desk into a cardboard box. Several such cartons and boxes were on the desks of the employees. There were some tears and hugs, well wishes for the future, and the exchange of phone numbers and promises to keep in touch. There were solemn handshakes and hushed discussions of what went wrong. There were quiet curses of Morgan Wolfe, and accusations of murder muttered under the breath that went uncomfortably silent as Marco passed.

  Marco opened the door to Wolfe's office and stepped inside. The secretary's desk was bare. Marco did not give it a second glance. He knocked softly on the inner office door.

  "Come in, Marco," he heard Wolfe's voice and marveled at how Wolfe seemed to be able to see through doors. "You seemed troubled," Wolfe said as Marco stepped into the plush, antique decorated office.

  "I haven't heard from McKinnon," Marco began. "Contact was supposed to have been made and the job done by this afternoon."

  "It's early yet," Wolfe said and went back to some reports he was reviewing.

  "This has never happened before, Mister Wolfe," said Marco. "We've always taken care of things like this right away and we did it ourselves. It's the way we stay clean. I don't like this one bit. Her out there so long is dangerous."

  “She'll be dead by tonight," Wolfe snapped.

  "I'd like to make sure," Marco protested.

  Wolfe's glare was demonic when he raised his eyes at Marco, and the man stepped back from the shear evil in the glare. "You go near that place and you'll answer to me for it. Clarissa knows you. You cased that flop house. You know that there are too many damn witnesses. You blow this hit and we all can go down. You do as I say. You don't call any shots. Let McKinnon do the job. I don't want this business traced to us. McKinnon never knows the client, only the victim and the payment. The job just gets done quietly. Clarissa even helped out. She picked a damn flop house to hide in. The murder will look like she was into drugs all along and got knocked off by her supplier or someone equally as questionable. So you don't go near that place, Marco. Am I understood?"

  "Yes, Mister Wolfe," said Marco quietly but there was a hint of reluctance in his whisper.

  "Where's Alex?"

  "I haven't seen him since he got back from La Jolla," Marco admitted.

  "He was at breakfast this morning," said Wolfe. "He was supposed to get me a revised Steadman report and I need it for tomorrow. Find him. Tell him to get it over here to me."

  "Yes, Mister Wolfe. How long do I wait to hear from McKinnon?"

  "Give it until six tonight. If you haven't heard, then let me know. I'll handle it from there. I'll be back up at the estate by then."

  "Mister Wolfe I'd feel better if we could just check out the situation."

  "You do as I say."

  Marco walked out of Wolfe's office with a greater apprehension than when he walked in.

  The hotel lobby smelled of damp musty wool and stale cigarettes. A man wrapped in a large tattered olive green coat, cradling a brown paper bag in his arms, was asleep on the sofa. The pouring rain outside was a dismal reminder of the tightly clenched jaws of Clarissa's trap and the pay phone on the wall beckoned and teased her unmercifully.

  She stood with her arms folded protectively around her as she watched the rain through the hotel's front door. As long as Phillips was in the hotel she could not go back to her room. She was restless and nervous with inactivity and apprehension and she prayed for an end to the storms and return of clear autumn skies and warmer weather.

  She thought about changing her looks and her name, pan handling on the streets during the day up in Hollywood for some change. Hugo would be back in Los Angeles after his grand opening. He had rescued her from the streets once. He would do it again. He could find her another place to hide, give her a job, until she got back on her feet. She would somehow get her life together. All she needed was a sunny day, and she could just walk out there and start over, as long as Hugo was there to catch her. He would be, she told herself. He would be.

  Nothing meant more now than survival and keeping out of Morgan's reach. It was not impossible if she kept her head and did not let the ever present fear and terror dictate her movements. Clarissa had the makings of a plan and she felt relieved. There was hope. Slim and fleeting, but hope none the less.

  Lightning split the dark sky and a clap of thunder cracked almost overhead. The intensity of the rain increased, bouncing hail with a vengeance off the roofs of the parked cars out on the street. Clarissa turned away and started back toward the stairs. On an impulse she checked the coin return on the pay phone. It was empty.

  She heard their voices just before she mounted the first riser. Dusty and P
hillips. They were on the floor above her in the stairwell. There was little point in letting herself be seen. The first floor hallway was empty and Clarissa pressed herself against the wall behind the stairs where she could still see the front door. She needed to see her leave, to know that she was out of the building before she felt safe.

  Phillips hesitated at the front door, talking to Dusty in a low voice. Clarissa could not hear what was being said but from time to time Phillips looked around the lobby and back up the stairs. Dusty shook his head and said something in reply that seemed to make Phillips angry. The inspector shouldered her way out the door and opened the umbrella. Clarissa smiled with relief.

  She did not hear the approaching footsteps on the carpet behind her. The lean arm slipped around her waist and jerked her off her feet. A hand clamped solidly over her mouth before she could let out a scream.

  Clarissa fought and scratched as the assailant dragged her backward down the hallway. She watch helplessly as Dusty disappeared back into his office. She kicked the wall to make some kind of noise but her attempts were drowned by the fury of the storm. The doors in the hallway did not open, and the sleeping man on the lobby sofa never stirred.

  A door opened behind her and she was pulled into the darkness. The door slammed shut and she felt stairs under her feet. She clawed frantically at the hand over her mouth as they descended the wooden steps into the gray shadows of the basement but could not budge the vise-like grip. He half dragged half carried her through a maze of boilers and water tanks, under low pipes, and past stacks of boxes, crates and assorted piles of cobweb shrouded debris.

  He kicked open a termite rutted door and pushed Clarissa into a small dimly lit room. He kicked closed the door and stood in the room holding her until she stopped struggling. Then he stepped away until his back was against the door. He watched her with his intense eyes, arms folded across his chest.

  Clarissa whirled to confront him and immediately drew back as far as she could into the tiny room no larger than her own. He no longer had the length of rope in his hands but the young man unnerved her beyond panic. He made no move toward her but he never took his eyes off of her.

  "Who are you?" Clarissa screamed at him. "Why are you doing this?"

  His faced remained a stoic mask. There was no hint of any emotion, no anger, malice, no passion. Only his eyes seemed to be alive. They were expectant, patiently waiting for Clarissa to do something, as if he thought she could read his mind.

  Clarissa scanned the room for a weapon, anything that she could use if he decided suddenly to come at her. Yet, he made no move.

  "Who are you?" she ventured carefully. "What do you want with me?" There was no response. His expression never varied. "Can you hear me? Do you speak English?”

  There was no way to tell if she was getting through to him. He was a statue, mute and lifeless. The longer he stood still, the more she allowed herself to relax, to think, to try and find a way to escape.

  She ventured a quick look around. The tiny room was dark and gloomy with one window high in the wall near the ceiling at side walk level. Under the window was a sink and counter. A small old battered refrigerator hummed softly to one side of the sink and a two burner hot plate sat on the counter. A plate, a cup, and a bone handled carving knife newly washed, rested in a plastic drainer on the other side of the sink. A cot with a worn brown blanket was along one wall and an old portable radio, some books, and a model race car missing a wheel sat on planks supported by bricks that served as shelving.

  "You can hear me," Clarissa said as she pointed to the radio. "Can you speak?" The teenager did not respond but his eyes seemed to soften slightly. Clarissa's gaze drifted back to the knife in the drainer and she edged closer to it, keeping her eyes on him for any sudden move. When he took a step toward her she backed away toward the shelves.

  She glanced down and examined the four books. They were old and tattered but all of them were about photography. Some envelops laying on the corner of the top shelf were addressed to Randy Misko. When she looked up, his eyes seemed to be smiling at her even though he had not moved a muscle. Then she noticed the walls. They were covered with photographs, most torn from old magazines, some were original photographs of the Hempstead Hotel and the surrounding neighborhood.

  Between a black and white photo of Elizabeth Taylor in a perfume ad and a cover of People Magazine with Mick Jagger, her own face stared back at her. It has been the Vogue cover she had done in the red wide-brimmed hat, the one in Rome when she first met Morgan Wolfe. There were other photo, mostly in black and white. Homeless people, neighborhood toughs, shopkeepers. But the photography was exquisite, haunting. Clarissa was captivated.

  "I'm Clarissa Hayden," she told him and put her hand on the Vogue cover. His eyes said that he knew. "Are you Randy? Maybe you can't speak. That's okay. I...I would like to go back to my room. I know that you won't hurt me but I'd like to go now. Please, Randy."

  He moved slowly away from the door and toward the shelves. Clarissa thought that he had understood her and took a couple of steps toward the door. He caught her by the arm and swung her around forcefully. She landed seated on the cot. He let go of her and she bolted for the door. He grabbed her around the waist and she fought and kicked as he set her back on the cot. She crawled as far away from him as she could. The knife in the dish drainer was a few feet away. She gaged the distance. She could never reach it before he could stop her.

  Clarissa watched as Randy pulled a shoe box from under the shelf and opened it. He took out a black hair brush, yanked Clarissa to her feet, and pulled her out of the room.

  "Randy," she cried as she struggled to break the grip on her wrist. "What are you doing? Please, don't." Her pleas were ignored as he pulled her farther into the basement. "Please, let me go."

  Clarissa was sobbing with terror when they reached a dead end. The corner of the basement was sealed off by a brick wall and the area was free of debris. Two high windows at street level threw gray shadows on the cement floor and soot stained brick walls. Clarissa squinted in the glare as Randy pushed her back toward the wall. He thrust the hair brush into her hand and stood a few steps away from her, staring intently. When Clarissa backed into the corner, he pulled her out and pushed the brush up into her hair.

  She stood frozen, unable to comprehend his motions, too frightened to do anything but stand there. Her eyes darted about the corner of the cellar for any means of escape. The windows were far too high out of her reach. She doubted that she could get past Randy without him grabbing her. There was nothing she could use as a weapon against him. There were no other halls or doorways, only a recess into the brickwork covered by a wooden door padlocked with what looked like a brand new lock.

  Again, Randy approached her and bent her wrist with the hair brush toward her head. "Please, don't," she whimpered. "I don't know what you want."

  He snatched the brush out of her hand and tugged it through his hair once, then held it out to her. When she did not take it immediately, he grabbed her hand and pushed the brush into it. He stepped away and watched her.

  She willed her hand to move, to drag the bristles through her tangled hair. She hoped that whatever thrill he got out of women brushing their hair would satisfy him enough to let her go. Clarissa took her time, fighting down panic and the thought that he wanted something else from her. Why drag her this far into the bowels of the cellar to simply watch her brush her hair? If he was planning to rape her he could have easily done it in his room where there was some semblance of a bed. Why bring her to an empty corner where there were windows?

  Clarissa's hands shook as she pulled through tangle after tangle. Randy watched her with his unnerving gaze, not moving, his eyes showing nothing. Then, without warning, he pulled the lock off the wooden cabinet and threw open the door. Clarissa dropped the hair brush and shrank back into the corner. She stared fixedly at his back, her mind a jumble of horrors at what the boy possibly had in mind to do to her.

  She grope
d on the floor for the fallen hair brush, a pitiful weapon at best, but she needed something in her hands. Clarissa held it above her head, ready to throw it at him and run. When he turned toward her, to her utter surprise, he held the battered old camera.

  Randy crossed to her in two strides, pulled Clarissa to her feet and pulled her under the light from the windows. Then he stepped back and made some adjustments to the lens.

  "Randy," Clarissa's voice was a thin and shaky. "Is that what you wanted? You scared me half to death."

  Randy paid little attention to her as he focused and shot. He shoved her up against the wall where shadows from the rain spattered windows made an eerie pattern on her face. Then he photographed her from another angle. She seemed to sense what he wanted. Slowly, she overcame her terror. She played to his camera, stiff at first, then as she relaxed, she started to enjoy it.

  When he stopped to reload new film from his stash in the cabinet, she fixed her hair and straightened her clothes. His frightening strangeness bothered her less and less as she gave him her best poses as if the olive drab work shirt and paint-stained jeans were haute-couture fashion from Paris. It felt good to work again even if it was for free in a dank cellar in a homeless shelter, with the oddest photographer of any she had known. Clarissa had not realized how much she had missed working until Randy and his unorthodox manner brought her to his private studio. There were no lights except from the window, no make-up, only her natural beauty. There were no designer clothes, just Virginia's old discards, but two hours later, when Randy had run out of film, Clarissa felt exhilarated. She gave Randy a kiss on the cheek. He had no reaction except to pull an object from his pocket and press it into Clarissa's palm. When she opened her hand, there was a quarter.

  "Randy, I can't take this," she protested but he had already turned away and was walking back through the maze to his room. She had no choice but to follow him, or she would be lost in the cellar.