High Profile js-6 Read online

  “We couldn’t afford to live in there,” Suit said, looking up at the glass towers.

  “No,” Jesse said.

  “Fits nice into the neighborhood,” Suit said.

  “Like a hooker at a picnic,” Jesse said.

  “What are we hoping, exactly, to see?” Suit said. R O B E R T B . P A R K E R

  “Lorrie Pilarcik Weeks,” Jesse said.

  “And when we see her?”

  “We watch her,” Jesse said.

  “Because she’s all we’ve got?”

  “Exactly,” Jesse said.

  “And we don’t know what else to do?”

  “Precisely,” Jesse said.

  “It’s great to train under a master,” Suit said.

  “I envy you the experience,” Jesse said.

  It was after five p.m. when Alan Hendricks pulled up in a cab and got out and went into Lorrie Weeks’s building. At six fifteen they came out and walked up Perry Street away from the river. Jesse and Suit followed. They went into a restaurant on Greenwich Street. Jesse and Suit waited outside. At nine o’clock they came out of the restaurant, arm in arm, and walked back to the west end of Perry Street.

  “Take the picture,” Jesse said.

  Suit took several.

  They went in together. By midnight Hendricks had not come out. Jesse and Suit went to their hotel.

  The next morning they were back outside Lorrie’s building before nine. It was after ten when Hendricks strolled out wearing the same clothes he’d had on last night and walked up Perry Street.

  “Stay with him,” Jesse said to Suit. “I assume he’s looking for a cab. If he is, let him go and come back here.”

  Jesse leaned on a yellow brick wall, in the sun, and looked at Lorrie’s building. In fifteen minutes, Suit was back. 2 3 4

  H I G H P R O F I L E

  “Cab uptown,” Suit said.

  “Do you know uptown from downtown?” Jesse said.

  “No, sir,” Suit said. “But I heard him say ‘uptown’ to the cabbie.”

  Jesse nodded.

  At quarter to twelve a cab stopped in front of Lorrie’s building and Conrad Lutz got out.

  “Aha!” Jesse said.

  “Aha?” Suit said.

  “It’s chief talk,” Jesse said. “Apprentice detectives aren’t allowed to say aha!”

  “Do you suppose he’s going to spend the night, too?”

  Suit said.

  “We’ll find out,” Jesse said. “Get the pictures.”

  Suit used the camera.

  “Goddamn,” Suit said. “I stand around here another day, I’m going to take root.”

  “I know it feels that way,” Jesse said. “But generally you don’t.”

  “I suppose it would be too big a coincidence,” Suit said,

  “if they both came here and weren’t visiting Lorrie Weeks.”

  “Yes,” Jesse said. “It would.”

  Jesse and Suit stood outside, taking turns occasionally to go to a small restaurant two blocks up. Lutz stayed until late afternoon. When he came out, Suit followed him.

  “Stay with him this time,” Jesse said. “Find out where he lives.”

  “He gets a cab,” Suit said, “I get a cab?”

  2 3 5

  R O B E R T B . P A R K E R

  “Yep.”

  “I gotta actually say ‘Follow that cab’ to a New York cabbie?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Jesse said. “He probably won’t understand English anyway.”

  Suit went after Lutz. Jesse stayed. No one came. No one went. At six p.m. Suit came back.

  “Lutz is staying at a hotel on Park Avenue South,” he said. He took his notebook out and found the page and looked at it.

  “The W Union Square,” Suit said. “They told me at the front desk that he was registered for the month.”

  “Lot of dough,” Jesse said.

  “Maybe Lutz has saved his pennies,” Suit said.

  “Maybe.”

  “Or maybe he knows a rich woman.”

  “Maybe,” Jesse said.

  “What’s shaking here?”

  “Some guy went by walking a Welsh corgi,” Jesse said.

  “That’s exciting.”

  “It was downhill from there,” Jesse said.

  At seven in the evening Hendricks showed up carrying a bottle of wine and some French bread.

  “An evening in,” Suit said.

  Jesse nodded.

  “Lutz in the daytime and Hendricks at night?” Suit said.

  “Seems so,” Jesse said.

  2 3 6

  H I G H P R O F I L E

  “Hot dog!” Suit said. “We gonna just keep standing here watching. I feel like one of those guys, you know, what do they call them, that likes to watch.”

  “Voyeur,” Jesse said.

  “Yeah, I’m starting to feel like a voyeur.”

  “They don’t have to be having sex all this time,” Jesse said.

  “They don’t?”

  Jesse smiled.

  “Better to think they are, I guess.”

  “Absolutely,” Suit said. “Are we developing a plan?”

  “We’re awaiting developments.”

  “How long are we going to await?” Suit said.

  “Until they occur, or we can’t stand it anymore,” Jesse said.

  Suit shook his head sadly.

  “That’s pathetic,” he said.

  “I know,” Jesse said. “But we got some nice photos.”

  2 3 7

  53

  Their third morning on Perry Street, Lutz didn’t show up. At noon Jesse said to Suit, “See if he’s still at the hotel.”

  Suit spoke on his cell phone for ten minutes before he broke the connection.

  “Checked out this morning,” Suit said. “Arranged with the concierge for a limo to the Delta Shuttle at LaGuardia.”

  “So he’s going to Boston or Washington,” Jesse said.

  “That’s what the concierge told me,” Suit said. “He said it only flies those two places.”

  Jesse smiled.

  H I G H P R O F I L E

  “Call Molly on that thing,” he said. “Tell her to see if he’s registered at the Langham again. If he isn’t, have her check other hotels.”

  Suit made the call.

  When he was through he said to Jesse, “What exactly is a concierge?”

  “They are to hotel guests as you are to me, Suit.”

  “Invaluable?”

  “Something like that. Molly going to call us back?”

  “Yes.”

  “You got call waiting on that thing?”

  “Sure.”

  “While you’re waiting for Molly, call Healy, and when you get him, gimme the phone.”

  “Can I tell him I’m your concierge?” Suit said.

  “Just call him,” Jesse said and rattled off the number. “I am going to need a New York City cop to help with the jurisdiction issue.”

  “And you figure Healy can help?”

  “Better than wandering into the local precinct and explaining that I’m the chief of police in Paradise, Massachusetts,” Jesse said.

  “You don’t think that would impress them?”

  “It should,” Jesse said. “But sometimes it doesn’t.”

  Suit dialed Healy, and when Healy came on he said, “Hold for Chief Stone,” and handed Jesse the phone.

  “Hold for Chief Stone?” Healy said.

  2 3 9

  R O B E R T B . P A R K E R

  “That’s Suitcase Simpson,” Jesse said. “He amuses hell out of himself.”

  “Me too,” Healy said. “Whaddya need?”

  Jesse told him.

  “Yeah,” Healy said. “I’ll make a couple calls.”

  Jesse handed the phone back to Suit, who broke the connection and put the phone away. The Welsh corgi went by again, walking two guys this time. Lorrie stayed in her condo.

  “What do you think she’s doing in there?
” Suit said.

  “When she’s not bopping Lutz or Hendricks.”

  “Looking at the view,” Jesse said.

  At three fifteen Molly called to report that Lutz had in fact returned to the Langham, where he was registered for the rest of the month.

  “He was registered for the rest of the month here,” Suit said.

  “You check into a hotel, they usually ask when you’re departing,” Jesse said. “You don’t know, you just give them some date down the line.”

  “What happens if you check out early?”

  Jesse smiled again.

  “They aren’t allowed to hold you captive,” he said. 2 4 0

  54

  Healy didn’t know Rosa Sanchez, but he knew someone who knew her bureau commander, and her bureau commander put him in touch with the Sixth Precinct commander, who assigned her to Jesse. Rosa was a detective second grade, not very tall, quite slim, with black hair and olive skin and the lyrical hint of Hispania lurking behind her perfect English. They met her at the Sixth Precinct station house.

  “According to the precinct commander,” she said as they walked out on West 10th Street, “I’m yours, as long as you need me . . . in a professional sense.”

  “You the newest detective?” Jesse said.

  R O B E R T B . P A R K E R

  “Yes.”

  “So you catch all the stuff like this,” Jesse said.

  “I do,” she said. “You ever on the job in a big city?”

  “L.A.,” Jesse said. “Robbery Homicide.”

  “Hotshot?”

  “You bet,” Jesse said.

  “You think Bratton can make a difference out there?”

  “He made a difference here,” Jesse said.

  “Good point,” she said. “What’s our plan?”

  “We’re going to visit a woman at her condo on Perry Street.”

  “Not one of the big new ones?” Rosa said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Oh, good,” she said. “I been dying to see what they’re like inside.”

  “While we’re in there, we’ll conduct an interview, which Officer Simpson will covertly record.”

  “Is that a tape recorder that he’s got in his purse,” Rosa said.

  “It’s a shoulder bag,” Suit said. “I bought it for the occasion.”

  “Sure,” she said. “You won’t be able to use the tape in court.”

  “Don’t plan to,” Jesse said. “I plan to see what she says, and then interview a guy in Boston and see what he says, and then, maybe, if what they say doesn’t match . . .”

  “You’ll play each other’s tapes for them.”

  Jesse nodded.

  2 4 2

  H I G H P R O F I L E

  “You ready, Suit?”

  “Yeah. I tested everything in the hotel room. I’ll start it before we go in. Leave the bag unzipped. Tape’ll run for ninety minutes.”

  “What’s your first name?” Rosa said to Suit.

  “Suit, short for Suitcase,” he said. “I mean, that’s not my real name. My real name is Luther, but there was a ballplayer named Suitcase Simpson . . .”

  Rosa nodded.

  “And it’s a lot better than being Luther,” she said.

  “Well,” Suit said, “maybe a little better.”

  Rosa was wearing black boots with a medium heel, black pants, a white shirt, and a yellow blazer. When they got to the front door of Lorrie Weeks’s building, she reached into the pocket of her blazer and took out her badge. As they walked past the doorman, Jesse noticed that she shifted slightly into a cop swagger. He smiled to himself. He wondered if he did that. Because she was pretty and small, it was probably more noticeable.

  At the reception desk, Jesse said, “Lorrie Weeks?”

  The woman at the desk said, “Who may I say is calling?”

  Rosa held up her badge.

  “Detective Sanchez,” Rosa said firmly, “New York City police.”

  The reception woman made the call and then took them up to Lorrie Weeks’s apartment. In the elevator, Suit put his hand inside his shoulder bag and turned on the tape recorder. Lorrie’s place was one of only two on the floor. She looked 2 4 3

  R O B E R T B . P A R K E R

  worried when she opened the door. But people often do, Jesse thought, when the cops come calling.

  “Oh,” she said when she saw Jesse. “It’s you. What is it?”

  “We need to talk,” Jesse said. “You remember Officer Simpson. This is Detective Sanchez. Since we’re in New York, she’ll be the law in the room.”

  Lorrie stepped away from the door. The reception lady looked like she wanted to know more, realized no one was going to tell her more, and walked discreetly away back to the elevator. Jesse went into a vast living room with huge picture windows.

  “What is it?” Lorrie said. “Is it anything bad?”

  “No,” Jesse said. “We just have some new information, and we wanted to see if you could help us interpret it.”

  “I’ll be glad to try,” she said.

  “Good,” Jesse said.

  2 4 4

  55

  Rosa Sanchez stood in front of the big window wall and looked at the view. Suit sat in a green-and-gold brocade chair with his notebook, and Jesse sat at one end of a big green leather couch with Lorrie at the other. She was wearing a short summer dress, white with big red flowers on it, and when she crossed her legs she showed a lot of thigh.

  Good thigh.

  “Your maiden name was Lorrie Pilarcik,” Jesse said.

  “How did you know that?” Lorrie said.

  R O B E R T B . P A R K E R

  “Advanced investigative techniques,” Jesse said. “And you married Walton Weeks on August twenty-sixth, 1990. In Baltimore.”

  Lorrie nodded. Her eyes were open very wide, her lips slightly parted and glossy. She touched her bottom lip with the tip of her tongue.

  “At the Harbor Court Hotel,” Jesse said.

  Lorrie nodded again.

  “Yes,” she said. “It was quite lovely.”

  Jesse smiled at her and nodded back.

  “I’ll bet it was,” Jesse said. “Was it your first marriage?”

  Lorrie blinked, her mouth still slightly open, the tip of her tongue moving back and forth on her lower lip.

  “I beg your pardon?” Lorrie said.

  “Was it your first marriage?” Jesse said.

  Again silence and the nervous movement of her tongue. Jesse waited. Detective Sanchez continued to gaze out at the river view. Suit was quietly writing in his notebook.

  “Second,” Lorrie said.

  “How long before?”

  “Before?”

  “How long before you married Walton Weeks did you divorce your first husband?”

  “Oh God, I don’t remember, a long time.”

  “You were granted a divorce,” Jesse said, “in Las Vegas on August fifteenth, 1990, after six weeks of residency.”

  “Why are you doing this?” Lorrie said. “Why are you asking me these things and trying to trick me?”

  2 4 6

  H I G H P R O F I L E

  “Trying to give you a chance to be honest,” Jesse said.

  “What was your first husband’s name?”

  Lorrie stood suddenly and stood in front of Jesse with her hands on her hips and leaned slightly toward him.

  “Conrad Lutz,” she said. “Okay? Is that what you want to hear? I was married to Conrad Lutz.”

  Rosa Sanchez turned from the view and folded her arms and looked at Lorrie. Suit continued to make notes.

  “Which is how you met Walton Weeks,” Jesse said.

  “So?”

  “Tell me about that?” Jesse said.

  “There’s nothing to tell. Conrad and I were at the end of our relationship, and Walton and I were just beginning.”

  “Did they overlap?”

  “It happens,” Lorrie said.

  “How did Conrad feel about it.”r />
  Lorrie said, “He knew we were done.”

  “So it wasn’t Weeks that broke up the marriage?”

  “No.”

  “What did?”

  “Why do you care?” Lorrie said.

  Jesse smiled.

  “Advanced investigative technique,” he said. “Just covering all the bases.”

  Lorrie nodded.

  “So what broke up your first marriage?” Jesse said.

  “Boredom, I suppose . . . and . . .” Lorrie stopped.

  “And?”

  2 4 7

  R O B E R T B . P A R K E R

  “Well, I don’t know how to say it without sounding terrible.”

  “We won’t judge you,” Jesse said.

  “I . . . I don’t come from circumstances as elegant as you might think,” Lorrie said. “When I was a young woman, it was exciting to marry a policeman.”

  “At any age,” Jesse said.

  Across the room, Rosa Sanchez smiled.

  “But then he went to work for Walton,” Lorrie said. “And I started to move in a different world. And meet different people. And . . . it wasn’t so exciting anymore to be married to a policeman.”

  “Or a bodyguard.”

  “Or a bodyguard,” Lorrie said.

  “And Lutz didn’t mind?” Jesse said.

  “Well, I suppose, of course, he must have minded,” Lor rie said.

  “And do you think he minded when you married Weeks?”

  “Well, I guess,” Lorrie said. “I suppose so.”

  “But he stayed on as Weeks’s bodyguard.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “It was a good job,” Lorrie said.

  Jesse nodded.

  “Do you think he might have minded enough to kill Weeks and hang him in a public park?” he said.

  “Oh my God,” Lorrie said.

  2 4 8

  H I G H P R O F I L E

  Jesse waited. Lorrie’s tongue flicked her lower lip.

  “Oh my God,” Lorrie said again.

  “Whaddya think?” Jesse said.

  “Well, I, my God . . . of course Conrad had some violence in him. A policeman. A bodyguard. He carried a gun. . . .”

  “Maybe?” Jesse said.

  “There was a lot of force in Conrad,” Lorrie said. “A lot of passion.”