Strip Read Free Page B

caught sight of himself in the mirror and once again felt the shock of seeing his naked body. His shoulders and upper arms were still hard and muscled, his forearms and thighs still had sinews like cables under the leathery skin, but over the years his torso had grown thick and soft, the belly rounded now like a pear, and the pectoral muscles loose like little breasts. His skin was gray-white like a dead man’s, except in the places where it was blotched and reddish from sleep.
    Spence held the phone out and Kapak took it, then looked over his shoulder at the small shape under the covers on the other side of the bed. He saw long blond hair on the pillow, but her name didn’t come to mind. He stepped into the living room and closed the door to let her sleep.
    “This is Mr. Kapak.”
    “Good morning, sir. This is Lieutenant Nicholas Slosser, Los Angeles Police Department. We would like you to come in this morning to talk to us”
    “Where is ‘in,’ and what do we have to talk about?”
    “‘In’ is Parker Center, Room Five Thirty-two. We’re investigating an incident that took place last night on a construction site in Hollywood. Two vehicles registered to the Kapak Corporation were found wrecked there.”
    “Wrecked? Are you sure?”
    “We’ll talk about it. It’s seven now. Can you be here by nine? Or I can send a unit to pick you up.”
    “I can get there myself.”
    “See you then.”
    Kapak pressed the button to end the call, then punched in the cell phone number of Gerald Ospinsky. After a couple of seconds he said, “Gerald.”
    “Yes?”
    “It’s me. I just got a call from a Lieutenant Slosser at Parker Center. They want me to go in there at nine.”
    “What’s it about?”
    “It’s about a police lieutenant rousting me out of bed to go down and talk to him. It would seem to me that my lawyer would want to be there.”
    “Of course I do. I just meant … it doesn’t matter what I meant. I’ll be there.”
    “Thank you.”
    Kapak switched off the call and tossed the phone across the living room to Spence. “Did any of the guys call me before that cop?”
    “No”
    “Idiots” he said. “It’s stupid not to call me.” There was a mixture of resentment and amazement in his expression.
    Spence was aware that no answer was expected of him. He stood with the telephone in his hand and waited while Manco Kapak stepped to the large sliding-glass window that overlooked the sandstone path between Australian black gum trees and sago palms and through a jungle of tropical plants.
    Kapak absently scratched his bulbous belly in front of the window. “I’ll get a shower in the guesthouse. Take the girl home, wherever that may be. Then come back and drive me downtown to Parker Center.”
    “Got it”
    Kapak opened the door, then walked naked down the path toward the guesthouse.
    As Spence went back into the bedroom, he glanced at his watch. It was already a minute or two after 7:00, and he would have to get the woman moving if he wanted to get Kapak to the police headquarters on time. He closed the bedroom door behind him and assessed the physical evidence to decide how to proceed. The girl’s clothes were draped with a reasonable attempt at keeping them unwrinkled on the couch at the foot of the bed, so he was fairly certain she had not been drunk. She had worn a nice summer dress and a pair of relatively tasteful strapped heels—nothing that would make her look like a weakened nocturnal creature trapped in the daylight. The bra and panties were of good quality, a matching set of Easter egg purple with a bit of lace.
    Spence cleared his throat and watched the woman stir, pulling the blanket up near her ears to preserve her unconsciousness. Spence walked to the bathroom, brought back a clean white Turkish bathrobe, and placed it at the foot of the bed where she would feel the weight of it on her feet. Then he walked along the wall beyond the foot of the bed, opening the curtains of the tall