“We were told this was an emergency and to get it here right fuckin’ now!”
“Well, you should learn to take payment over the phone,” I told him. “Get your truck and get this shit outta here.”
He threw up his hands, and I walked outside and called Rosalie Simmons, Nick Madison’s accountant. She picked up on the second ring, waiting for my call, as Mr. Cox had made her aware that I would need backup, and we had talked at length the night before.
“You must be there already,” she said instead of greeting me. “I can hear the telltale beat of his house.”
“Yeah, it’s a zoo,” I groused at her. “I’ve only been here maybe five minutes, and I can already tell it’s a mess.”
“Tell me what you need,” she prodded me, sounding both sad and worried. “I’m here to help you.”
“I need all his credit cards suspended, and keep the expenses to mortgage and utilities and necessities, the water bill and those kinds of things. No other money goes out of any of his accounts, for any reason, unless I know what it is. I need a spreadsheet with everything.”
“Absolutely, consider it done.”
“And anyone who’s got a card that Nick gave them, I want those cancelled immediately,” I told her, because I was guessing that people other than Nick were ordering all manner of items to be delivered.
“Oh yes, I’ve been waiting for that order,” she said, cackling. “You should see the number of cards out there. The chauffeur has one, the housekeepers. What about Brent’s? You want that one suspended as well?”
“Yep, everybody. The only one who has a card is me, starting now.”
“Done and done,” she apprised me cheerfully.
“I need new ones issued for the people I’m hiring, so if you could courier me out some blanks, that would be great.”
“On it.”
“I’ll probably be calling back.”
“Of that,” she said with a snort of laughter, “I have no doubt.”
“Thank you for helping and being on call. It should only be today and tomorrow.”
“It’s my pleasure, Mr. Barnes.”
“Just Loc,” I corrected.
“Loc,” she repeated. “We’ll chat soon.”
Hanging up, I walked back into the house, made my way into the living room through the crush of bodies, over the hardwood floors, found the sound system and, after a moment of searching for the main power button, gave up and just pulled the plug from the back, shutting it off, thrilled that the pounding bass was no longer reverberating through my body.
In my experience, yelling for people to get out never worked. “Fire” was one word I had been advised to use, but unless people saw smoke, no one moved. The only one guaranteed to clear a room was “raid.”
“It’s a raid! The police are on their way!” I yelled, trying to infuse my voice with the right amount of fear. “They’re after Nick! They know he’s got drugs! We gotta get outta here!”
Every time. Like a charm.
It was like watching roaches scatter when you turned on the light in the kitchen—which I’d only experienced with my first apartment in Hyde Park. People stood up, left their drinks where they were, left cigarettes and joints burning in ashtrays and coke piled up on mirrors. The party must not have been going on long, because as far as I could tell, no one was too stoned, or too drunk, to move. There was only a quick exodus, with people repeating the threat of a raid, and everyone bolting, no matter where they’d been hiding.
Walking back to the kitchen, across the Italian travertine floor, through the crowd in a rush to leave, I made it back to Brent, who was staring at me in wonder.
“I need a cleaning crew in here now,” I told him.
“Yes, Mr. Barnes.”
“Just Loc,” I corrected him flatly. “And I need to see those bodyguards.”
“They’re all with Nick in the pleasure room.”
I didn’t even want to know. “Which is where?” I asked, already feeling the headache coming on.
“Down by the pool, there’s a cabana,” he explained sheepishly. “You can’t miss it.”
“Again, cleaning crew here now,” I insisted, raising my voice a bit so he’d understand that I was serious.
“Absolutely,” he replied quickly.
The crowd was thinning, which was good, and I went out the back, admiring the view as well as the wide patio with patchwork concrete tile and wood furniture that sat under a gorgeous canopy of ancient oak trees. Farther out, there was a cactus garden and a rush of colors as I walked down the wide natural stone steps that ran through the terraced yard full of lilac and California poppies, morning glory and wildflowers. There were string lights wrapped around smaller trees, and some of those were citrus—tangerine, lemon, and pomelo—and pear trees, as well as a lone avocado. There was a wide flagstone walkway that led through a small area of lavender and purple hyssop before, as you neared the pool area, more foxgloves, petunias, and sweet potato vines.