Void Moon

31

ON Friday morning Cassie Black arrived at the dealership at ten and checked with Ray Morales to see what was what. He had taken her calls while she had been out the last few days. Ray said all was quiet but that he had a prospect coming in to test-drive a new Boxster at three. He had just been given a development deal at Warner Brothers that ran into seven figures. Ray had gotten it out of the Hollywood Reporter and expected it to be an easy sale. She thanked him for thinking of her with the prospect and was about to head to her office when he stopped her.

"You okay, kid?" he asked.

"Sure, why?"

"I don't know. You don't look like you've been sleeping much lately."

Cassie brought her right hand up and cupped her left elbow, which still ached from the briefcase jolt.

"I know," she said. "Just been thinking about things. Sometimes it keeps me awake."

"What things?"

"I don't know. Just things. I'll be in my office if you need me."

She left him then and went to the sanctuary of her tiny office. She dropped her backpack into the foot well of the desk and sat down. She put her elbows up on the blotter and ran her hands through her hair. She felt like screaming I CAN'T DO THIS ANYMORE! But she tried to put her anxieties aside by reminding herself that one way or another her life would be changing very soon.

She picked up the phone to check her voice mail, even though on Tuesday she had left a generic outgoing message saying she would be off work for a few days and referring calls to Ray Morales until she got back. Four messages had been left for her anyway. One was from a body shop reporting a set of customized chrome wheels for a ' 58 Speedster she had sold were now ready. The second call was from one of Ray's prospects – a producer at Fox – from the week before. He wasn't calling about the car he had test-driven. He was just calling to tell her he had liked her style and wanted to know if she was interested in going with him to a premiere of a friend's picture the following week. Cassie didn't bother writing down the guy's private cell phone number.

"If you liked my style, why didn't you buy the car?" she said into the phone.

The third message was from Leo. There was an agitation in his voice she had not heard before. The message had come in at 12:10 A.M. that morning. She listened to it three times.

"Hey, it's me. What's wrong with your cell phone? I couldn't get through. Anyway, I just got back from my drop. I have those things you wanted but there's something else, something wrong. Somebody got the address somehow and dropped me something there. An ace of hearts from the Flamingo. I don't know what it means but it means something. Call me when you get this. Use all precautions and keep your head down. Oh, and erase this, okay?"

Cassie hit the three button on the phone, erasing Leo's recording before she went on to the fourth message. The last call had come in at seven-thirty that morning and it was a hang-up call. There had been no background noise, just a few seconds of someone breathing and then the hang-up. She wondered if it had been Leo.

She hung up the phone, reached down to the floor and pulled her backpack up onto her lap. She first dug through it until she found her cell phone. It had been turned off. She remembered doing it the night before after hanging up on Leo and deciding she didn't want him calling back.

She turned the phone on now and put it down on the desk. She then continued digging through the bag until she found the box containing the deck of cards she had bought in the gift shop at the Flamingo. She quickly opened it, turned the deck face up and started going through the cards one at a time looking for the ace of hearts. The closer she got to the bottom of the deck the greater the dread that was building inside her. When she reached the last card without seeing the ace of hearts she cursed out loud and threw the deck across the small office. It hit the Tahiti poster and then cards exploded in all directions, coming down on the floor and the desk.

"Goddammit!"

She buried her face in her palms as she tried to figure out what to do. She snatched up the phone to call Leo but then thought better of it. Use all precautions. She thought of using her cell phone but dismissed that, too. She opened the desk drawer and grabbed a handful of change from a tray meant for pens and pencils and got up.

She opened the door and almost walked right into Ray Morales, who had apparently come to see what the commotion was about.

"Excuse me," she said, making a move to go around him.

Ray looked past her into the office and saw the playing cards all over the place.

"What, you playing fifty-two pickup in there?"

"More like fifty-one."

"What?"

"I'll be back in a few minutes, Ray. I have to take a walk."

He silently watched her cross the showroom and go out the glass door.

Cassie walked a block down to the Cinerama Dome, where she knew there was a pay phone out front. She dialed Leo's cell phone number from memory and listened to ten unanswered rings before hanging up. Now questioning everything, she dialed it again in case she had messed up the first time. This time it went twelve rings before she hung up. The dread that had begun to rise in her while she looked through the cards had now gone several notches up the ladder to the level of panic.

She tried to calm herself by trying to think of reasons the call to Leo would go unanswered. The cell phone and Leo were attached like Siamese twins. If the phone had not been turned on, she knew her call would have been diverted to a message. She wouldn't have gotten the continuous ringing. So the phone was on but not being answered. The question was why.

The pool, she suddenly remembered. Leo swam laps in the morning. He'd have taken the phone out to the table next to the pool, but if he was in the middle of his laps he wouldn't hear it, not with the water sloshing around him and the freeway noise as well.

The explanation calmed her a bit. She called Leo's number once more and again it went unanswered. She put the phone back on its hook and decided to go back to the dealership. She would come back and try calling again in a half hour or forty-five minutes. She remembered Leo once told her he swam three miles a day. She had no idea how long that would take but figured that a half hour should be enough time.

Five minutes later she walked back into the dealership showroom and saw Ray and a man who wore a porkpie hat looking at the silver Carrera with the whale tail spoiler. Ray saw her and signaled her over with his fingers.

"Cassie, this is Mr. Lankford. He wants to buy a car."

The customer turned and smiled with embarrassment.

"Well, I want to look at a car. I mean, drive it. Then we'll see."

He put his hand out.

"Terrill Lankford."

She took his hand and shook it. His grip was firm, his hand dry as powder.

"Cassie Black."

She looked at Ray. She didn't want to do this. Her mind wasn't on selling cars.

"Ray, is Billy in yet? Or Aaron? Maybe one of them would be – "

"Meehan's on a test and Curtiss isn't in till twelve. I need you to show Mr. Lankford a car."

Ray's tone indicated he was put out by her flaky behavior and that there was no debate allowed here. She turned her attention to Lankford. He was neat and well dressed in a set of retro clothes that went with the hat. Judging by his pasty complexion she guessed he'd be interested in a coupe. But that was okay because the Boxster didn't come in a coupe. That left only the higher priced Carreras.

"Which model are you interested in?"

Lankford smiled, showing off a perfect set of teeth. Cassie noticed his eyes were sidewalk gray, an unusual combination with the man's jet black hair.

"A new Carrera, I think."

"Well, I'll get a car ready. If you could give your driver's license and insurance card to Ray, he'll get it copied while I get a car ready."

Lankford's mouth opened but he didn't say anything.

"You do have proof of insurance, don't you?" Cassie asked.

"Of course, of course."

"Okay, then let Ray take care of that and I'll get the car. Cab or coupe?"

"Excuse me?"

"Hardtop or cabriolet – convertible?"

"Oh. Well, it's such a nice day, why don't we take the top off?"

"Sounds good to me. We've got one in stock and available. It's arctic silver. That sound good?"

"Great."

"All right, come on out to the carport when you're done with Ray."

She pointed to the glass doors at the opposite end of the showroom.

"I'll meet you there," Lankford said.

While Ray took the prospect into the finance office where the copying machine was, Cassie went into his office and got the key to the silver cab off the board. She then went to her own office and grabbed her wallet out of her backpack. She looked around and saw the playing cards all over the place and realized that if Lankford wanted to make a deal, she'd have to stick him in Ray's office while she cleaned up. There wasn't time now.

She started out of the office and then remembered something. She grabbed her cell phone off her desk and clipped it onto her belt. Just in case Leo calls, she thought to herself.

She headed out to the side lot to the car. She got in, slid her wallet into a CD holder on the dash and then started the engine. She put the windows and top down, checked the fuel level and saw there was a quarter tank, then drove the car up to the showroom door just as Lankford was stepping out.

"Let me drive it until we get out of here," she called over the sound of the engine that was over-revving as the car warmed up. "Then you'll take over."

Lankford smiled and gave her the okay sign and got into the passenger side. She pulled out onto Sunset and then turned north on Vine. At Hollywood Boulevard she took a left and went down to Cahuenga, which she took north toward the hills and Mulholland Drive.

They drove in silence at first. Cassie liked to let the prospects listen to the car, feel its power on the turns, fall in love with it, before there was any talking. She liked to hold back on the sales pitch and the particulars until the customer was behind the wheel. Besides, her thoughts weren't on Lankford and his interest in a $ 75,000 car. She kept thinking about Leo's call and the anxiety she'd heard in his voice.

The Carrera effortlessly climbed through the Mulholland curves from Cahuenga up to the crest of the Santa Monica Mountains. At the Hollywood overlook she pulled off the road, killed the engine and got out.

"Your turn," she said, her first words since he had gotten in the car.

She stepped to the railing at the edge and looked down at the shell of the Hollywood Bowl far below. Her eyes moved out from the bowl across Hollywood toward the spires of downtown. The smog was heavy and had a pinkish-orange tint to it. But somehow it didn't look all that bad.

"Nice view," Lankford said from behind her.

"Sometimes."

She turned and watched as he got into the driver's seat. She went around and got in the passenger side.

"Why don't you keep going on Mulholland for a little ways. You'll get a good idea of how this handles. We can take Laurel Canyon down to the one-oh-one and take that back to Hollywood. You'll be able to open it up on the freeway a little bit, see how it does."

"Sounds good."

He found the ignition on the left side quickly and started the engine. He backed out of the parking slot, then dropped the transmission into first gear and pulled out onto Mulholland. He drove with one hand on the stick shift at all times. Cassie could tell immediately he knew what he was doing.

"I take it you've driven one of these before but I'm going to give you the pitch anyway."

"That's fine."

She started listing the attributes of the car, starting with the new water-cooled engine and transmission and moving toward the suspension and brakes. She then moved inside the cockpit and started going over the amenities.

"You've got cruise control, traction control, onboard computer all standard. You've got CD, automatic windows and roof, dual air bags. And down here…"

She pointed down between her legs to the front of her seat. Lankford glanced down there but then put his eyes back on the road.

"… you have a passenger-side cutoff for the air bag – in case you are traveling with a small child. You have kids, Mr. Lankford?"

"Call me Terrill. And no, I don't have kids. You?"

Cassie didn't answer for a moment.

"Not really."

Lankford smiled.

"Not really? I thought that was a yes or no question for a woman."

Cassie ignored the statement.

"What do you think of the car… Terrill?"

"Very smooth. Very sweet."

"It is. So what do you do for a living?"

He glanced over at her. The wind was threatening to blow his hat off. He reached up and cranked it down over his forehead.

"I guess you could say I'm a troubleshooter," he said. "I'm a business consultant. Have my own company. I take care of things. This and that. I'm a magician, really. I make other people's problems disappear. Why do you ask?"

"Just curious. These cars are expensive. You must be very good at what you do."

"Oh, I am. I am. And cost is not a problem. I pay cash. Actually, Cassie, I expect to come into a large sum of money soon. Very soon, in fact."

Cassie looked over at him and felt a sudden shiver of fear. It was instinctive more than intuitive. Lankford pressed the pedal a little harder and the Porsche started moving through the winding curves a little faster. He looked over at her again.

"Cassie. What is that short for? Cassandra?"

"Cassidy."

"As in Butch? Your parents outlaw fans?"

"As in Neal. As in my father was always on the road. Or so I was told."

Lankford frowned and hit the pedal a little harder.

"That's really too bad. My father and me, we were close."

"I'm not complaining about it. You want to slow it down, Mr. Lankford? I'd like to get back to the showroom in one piece, if you don't mind."

Lankford didn't respond at first with his voice or his foot. The car powered through another turn, its tires protesting as they labored to hold the road.

"I said, do you – "

"Yes," Lankford finally said. "You do want to get back alive."

Something about the tone in which Lankford delivered the line revealed that he was not talking about the possibility of a car accident. Cassie looked over at him and shifted in her seat so that her body was pressed against her door.

"Excuse me?"

"I said you want to make sure you get back alive, Cassidy."

"Okay, pull the car over. I don't know what you think you're – "

Lankford slammed his foot down on the brake pedal and yanked the wheel hard to the left. The Porsche skidded and spun into a 180 -degree turn as it stopped. He looked over at her and smiled, then dropped in the gear and popped the clutch out. The car lurched forward and he started speeding through the curves, back in the direction they had come.

"What the hell are you doing?" Cassie yelled. "Stop the car! Stop the car right now!"

Cassie reached her right hand up and gripped the top of the windshield brace. Her mind was moving as fast as the car as she tried to come up with a plan, an escape.

"Actually, Lankford's not my name," the man next to her was saying. "I got it off a book I found on a shelf at Leo Renfro's last night. It's called Shooters and I started taking a look at it. I thought it was about a guy in my line of work but it wasn't. But, hell, when your boss came up to me in the showroom and asked my name, it's all I could come up with on short notice, you know. My name is Karch. Jack Karch. And I've come for the money, Cassie Black."

Through the terror building inside Cassie a thought pressed forward. Jack Karch, she thought. I know that name.