The Chosen One

22

New Orleans, Thursday March 23, 00.52 CST

Trying to sound as nonchalant as she could, she asked the guard next to her about the man on the screen. ‘Do you recognize this man?’

‘That your husband?’

‘Do you recognize him?’

‘I’m not sure what I’m meant to say here, ma’am.’

‘You heard what your boss told you. You’re to help me out.’

‘I don’t know what would help you out, ma’am. For me to say I do recognize him or to say I don’t.’

‘How about you tell me the truth?’

‘He looks kinda familiar, yes.’

‘You know who that is?’ For a moment, she hesitated: was it possible this guard had seen Forbes on TV?

‘Well, I couldn’t tell you his name, if that’s what you mean, ma’am.’

‘You couldn’t?’

‘That’s not how it works here. We’re not meant to know anyone’s name. We never ask. That’s the whole point. It’s not Cheers.’

‘But you’ve seen him before?’

‘He’s been here a coupla times.’

‘A couple?’

‘OK. Bit more than a couple.’

‘Is he a regular?’

‘I’m sorry, ma’am. This must be real hard for you.’

‘So he’s a regular, yes?’

The guard nodded.

‘And what about her?’ Maggie nodded towards the frozen image on the screen. The woman was only half in shot, at the extreme right of the picture.

The guard rewound and played the sequence back at half-speed: the head down, the sharp bob of hair, the elegant figure. ‘Hard to tell,’ he said finally. He rewound the tape and stared at her intently. But the woman kept her head down, refusing to reveal her face.

‘Oh, OK. I can see who that is now.’

‘She come here often too?’

‘She works here.’

‘Here? You mean I could go talk to her?’

‘You’d have to ask the boss ’bout that. Mind you, she ain’t here today.’

Maggie frowned, puzzled.

‘She’s a dancer. Started a couple of days ago, I think. But she didn’t turn up for work today.’

‘And do you remember her name?’

‘You’re kidding, right?’

‘No.’

‘Like I said, it’s not Cheers.’

‘I thought that was just for the guests.’

‘OK,’ he said, allowing himself a small, patronizing smile, as if explaining to a naïve child the ways of the world. ‘The girls have names. But they’re bullshit names. Mystery, Summer, all that shit.’

‘So what was this one called?’

‘I can’t remember that, ma’am. I’m sorry. Remember, I ain’t inside seeing the show. I’m on the door.’

‘Were you on the door last night?’

Before he had a chance to answer, the door swung open. It was the manager. She smiled at Maggie. ‘You got what you wanted?’

‘I wouldn’t say it was what I wanted.’

The woman shifted her features into a pose of earnest concern. ‘No, of course.’

Frank, eager to seem helpful, gestured for his boss to come closer and to look at the screen. ‘The lady wants to know who this is. I said she was new.’

The manager leaned in for a closer look at the monitor and Maggie hurriedly suggested Frank rewind: she wanted to go back to the image of the woman alone, before Forbes entered the frame. The security guard might not be a cable TV viewer, with instant recall of the face of Vic Forbes, but she couldn’t be so sure of the manager.

The outline of the woman now dominated the screen, the shape of her haircut the clearest feature. After a second or two, the club manager spoke. ‘Frank’s right. She’s new. Started this week.’

‘Who is she?’

‘She dances under the name of Georgia, if that helps you.’

‘You don’t know her real name?’

‘I never ask.’

‘And she only started this week?’

‘Right. She came in day before yesterday, I think. Offered to start right away.’

‘Just like that.’

‘Well, it wasn’t a hard decision, if you know what I mean.’

‘What do you mean?’

The manager looked back up at the screen, a half-smile on her face. ‘You think your husband left the club with this girl?’

Maggie nodded, dipping her head: the anguish of the betrayed wife.

‘Well, you don’t want to hear any more about it then, do you?’

Maggie stared at her. ‘You said it wasn’t a hard decision. What did you mean?’

‘I shouldn’t have said anything. I’m sorry.’

‘What did you mean?’

‘I just meant that she was-’ She hesitated, unsure how to put it. ‘Unusual. In this place, I mean.’

Maggie kept her eyes on the manager, leaving the silence hanging. Eventually the woman spoke again. ‘Look, most of the girls in here look like strippers. Their nails are fake, their boobs are fake, their hair’s fake. The college boys like those girls plenty, but the more upscale guests are looking for something real. Kind of the whole natural beauty thing. They’ll pay for that. They’ll come back for it again and again.’

‘So you hired her straight away.’

‘Yes. She was gorgeous, no doubt about it.’ She looked at Maggie, who was furrowing her brow in a show of wounded wifely love. ‘I’m sorry.’

Maggie collected herself. ‘And where is she now?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Don’t worry. I’m not going to go after her.’

‘I wouldn’t blame you if you did. But, I’m telling you the truth: I don’t know.’

‘Did she not show up for work?’

‘Not since last night,’ the manager said. Then, making the connection, she nodded towards the CCTV image on the screen: ‘Not since then.’

‘Have you tried to contact her?’

‘I called her this evening. Her phone just rang.’

Maggie looked down at her hands, digesting what she had heard.

The woman spoke again. ‘Listen, sweetheart, you don’t want to hang around a sleaze-pit like this. Why don’t you and your baby go home, have a long soak in the tub, and put all this behind you. Chain the door and get the locks changed tomorrow. How’s that sound?’

Maggie managed a watery smile. ‘Thanks.’

‘I’m sorry you had to find out like this, honey. But better to find out now than later. Take it from me, that ain’t no fun. Not for you, not for your child.’

Maggie collected her things, digging into her bag for a tissue which she used to wipe away fake tears, thanked Frank and let the manager show her out. Upstairs, she surveyed for the last time the tables cloaked in darkness and the stage in a purple haze. Performing was a dull-eyed bottle-blonde, who held her hands over her head in readiness for a manoeuvre that would have her literally bending over backwards with her private parts thrust forward.

Maggie headed for the door. Following the lead set by ‘Georgia’, she kept her head down throughout so that no CCTV camera would catch her.

Once outside, she exhaled deeply, refreshed to be out in the cold and away from the stale, soiled air of the Midnight Lounge. She fought the urge to phone Stuart. Not yet; this was still not nailed down. She looked across the street, seeing a man in an idling car. He glanced directly at her, then away. Not a cab, then. Suddenly, desperately, she wanted to get out of here.

While the bouncer on the door called her a taxi, she began to pace, itching for a cigarette.

Surely what she had just seen could mean only one thing. The time stamped on the CCTV recording had been unambiguous: 23.05. Last night, Vic Forbes had been in a TV studio, then sat somewhere – perhaps at home, maybe at an internet café, perhaps on a street corner armed only with a BlackBerry – and issued his ‘statement’ threatening to reveal a shocking aspect of Stephen Baker’s past. And then he had come to his regular perch at the Midnight Lounge where he had picked up a girl. And not just some stripper, but an unusually beautiful woman. Who just happened to have started work at this place – where Forbes was a known regular – one day earlier and who had now disappeared off the face of the earth.

They had left together and, an hour or so later, he was dangling from a rope, trussed up like a drag queen with a Vitamin C habit.

There was only one way that could have happened, wasn’t there? Or was it still conceivable that Vic Forbes had somehow come to his death alone?

All right, Maggie told herself. Think. Forbes went back to his apartment with Georgia, they’d fooled around a bit, said good night and then he – not yet sated – had got out his Rocky Horror kit for a bit of solo gasping, which then went horribly wrong.

Theoretically possible. But that was surely the less likely scenario. What was it the nuns had taught them in those moral philosophy lessons? Occam’s Razor: always go with the simplest explanation, the one that made the fewest assumptions.

And that version pointed only one way.

The gorgeous Georgia had started working at the Lounge on the very day Vic Forbes had begun his public and private blackmail assault on the President.

Maggie pictured Frank, the security guard, nodding when she asked if Forbes had been a regular. Had he been there a couple of times? Bit more than a couple.

Whoever had been watching Forbes knew he’d be at the Lounge. Probably knew his tastes, too. So they sent in Georgia.

Forbes – unable to believe his luck – had taken the bait. He’d headed home, she did the job, then dressed his body to look like an auto-erotic suicide.

Was there another way? What if it was a real pick-up? She pictured Forbes at his front door, fumbling for his key, then tumbling inside with Georgia, ravenous for sex. He tells her of his fetish for dressing up and his penchant for breathlessness. She goes along with it, but something goes wrong. Worried she’ll be blamed, she flees…

Again, possible. But what were the chances that a woman, who had just started working at the Midnight Lounge when Forbes got active, would go home with him on the very night he was about to strike his deadliest blow against the President, and then disappear immediately after his death – what were the chances that all that was a coincidence?

Besides, Maggie remembered Telegraph Tim saying that the only fingerprints they’d found at the house had belonged to Forbes. If she had just been an unhappy hooker, in the wrong place at the wrong time, she’d have left her prints everywhere.

No, there was only one plausible explanation for why Georgia had disappeared – and it was the same explan ation for why she had appeared at the Midnight Lounge in the first place. It was a classic honeytrap – though with a lethal sting.

The police were wrong. Tim and all the other reporters were wrong.

Forbes had not killed himself, by accident or design.

Victor Forbes had been murdered.