The whole complex seemed oddly empty, as though all those cars in the lot had decanted their owners into outer space. No one passed me in the halls and I waited alone beside the elevators. When I got to the fourth floor I faced a bare aqua wall with a minute sign directing me to reception. Presumably in Paragon’s days of penury they’d decided not to waste money on big letters.
The place was so empty I was beginning to wonder if a blinking computer screen would greet me at the reception area. I was relieved to see an actual person, a woman about my own age with shoulder-length curls and a brownish jacket dress that was limp and faded from years of wear. I began to feel more confident about my blue jeans.
I gave a smile intended to convey both empathy and self-assurance and asked for the controller. She obligingly dialed a number, then put her palm over the mouthpiece.
“Who can I say is calling?”
“My name’s V. I. Warshawski.” I handed her a card. “I’m a financial investigator.”
She transmitted the information, stumbling a little over my name, as receptionists so often do, then turned back to me. “They’re not hiring anyone.”
“And I’m not looking for work. This will be so much easier to explain directly to the controller, instead of through you to her secretary.”
“It’s a him. Mr. Loring. What do you have to say to him?”
I counted on my fingers. “Six words. Diamond Head Motors and debt financing.”
She repeated my words dubiously. When I nodded she said them again into the phone. This time she seemed to be on hold. She answered incoming calls and routed them through, checked back with her own blinking light and waited again. About five minutes later she told me I could have a seat: Sukey would be down for me.
The wait stretched to twenty minutes before Sukey showed up. She was a tall, thin woman whose skin-tight skirt emphasized the painful boniness of her pelvis and hips. Her pale face was pitted with acne scars, but her voice, when she asked me to follow her, was deep and sweet.
“What did you say your name was?” she asked as we got on the elevator. “Charlene wasn’t very clear over the phone.”
“Warshawski,” I repeated, handing her a card.
She studied the little rectangle gravely, until the doors opened for the eighth floor. As soon as we stepped off the elevators I realized I’d found the secret cache of Paragon employees. The place was a maze of cubicles, each holding two or three computer stations and the people to staff them. As we moved toward the end of the floor the cubes gave way to offices, still filled with computers and their minders.
We finally reached a small open area. Sukey’s desk stood outside an open corner office. It was labeled as Ben Loring’s lair, but he wasn’t home. Sukey directed me to one of the foam-core seats and knocked on a nearby door. I couldn’t hear what she said when she stuck her head around the jamb. She disappeared briefly, then came back to escort me in.
The conference room was filled with men, mostly in shirt sleeves and all of them looking at me with a mix of suspicion and contempt. No one spoke, but two or three of them were darting glances at the second guy from my left, a burly fiftyish man with a thick bush of gray hair.
“Mr. Loring?” I held out a hand to him. “I’m V. I. Warshawski.”
He ignored my hand. “Who are you working for, Warshawski?”
I sat uninvited at my end of the oval table. “Salvatore Contreras.”
This time all seven of them exchanged glances. Normally, of course, I keep my clients’ identities secret, but I wanted to watch them all try to figure out what big financial interest Mr. Contreras represented. Maybe they’d even think he was with the Mob.
“And why does he care about Diamond Head?” Loring asked at last.
“How about this, Mr. Loring: you explain to me what Paragon’s connection to Diamond Head is and I’ll tell you what my client’s is.”
There was a little rumble through the room at that. I heard the man on Loring’s right mutter, “I told you this was a waste of time, Ben. She’s just going to dick us around.”
Loring shook him off like a bad pitch. “I can’t talk to you unless I know who you represent. There’s an enormous amount at stake here. If you work for—well, certain people—then you already know all about it and our legal staff will be filing papers to deal with what looks like a rather naive attempt at espionage. And if your client— Contreras, did you say?—has his own ax to grind, then I’m not going to make you a present of very explosive information.”
“I see.” I studied my fingernails while I thought it over.
“I’ll ask you a different question. Two questions. How many people in this room know that Paragon is bankrolling Diamond Head? And how many of you know why?”
This time the rumble became a roar. Loring let it go for a minute, then brought the meeting back under control.
“Any of you boys know anything about Diamond Head? Or bankrolling?” His voice was light with sarcasm.