The few minutes I had spent with Lana hung in my guts like food in a dumpster. “. . . don’t let him get me, Ricky.” That was her plea. It seemed simple, even childish, at the time, but it was all too real. Ricky and I were partners. If he failed, I failed. And she was quite dead. Her blood had mixed with the filth in the gutters just as Abaddon had said.
I opened the door of the office. He sat like a sphinx, staring down at the desk. The beautiful bronze Cuban skin was more yellow and his eyes, usually sparkling with intensity, had lost that glint that assured you we were all alive. I made some coffee and pulled the bottle of Jameson out of my desk drawer. Neither of us spoke as the carafe spit and hissed. When I set the mug of steaming liquid in front of him, he finally spoke.
“Booked a seat to New York on the 3:45 out of Lauderdale. Be gone a couple of days.”
“Damned, Ricky. It’s a hell of a time for a vacation.”
“No vacation, Dee. My cousin, Daniel, is a full professor at NYU. I called him this morning. He has friends across town at Columbia. Thinks he can call in some favors, use a bit of professional courtesy to collect some info on Estrella and Eleisha. She and your buddy, Rod, are MIA for a few days. Might as well do some investigative work while we wait.”
“Can’t hurt. Listen Ricky . . . about Eleisha . . .”
“Shut up. Dee. You and I both know I screwed up. I wasn’t quick. Wasn’t careful. She was pleading and I was too damned preoccupied to listen. I just didn’t take it seriously enough. Abaddon is fast and deadly. If we catch him, I’m going to take that sword and ram it up his ass.”
“Yeah, just let me have one hand on the handle. I know how you feel.”
“The hell you do. She trusted me. . . if we hadn’t questioned her, she might still be alive. The bastard knew. He must have been nearby.” He gulped down a few bolts of air. “Just keep it cool for a couple of days and watch your back. The sonovabitch obviously isn’t finished. Hopefully I’ll get something useful in New York. At least it’s worth a shot.”
I got up slowly and went to the window. I could almost see Lana’s reflection in the dusty glare of the glass, but it wasn’t her. It was me. There was no escape. Ricky was right, but it wasn’t him that screwed up. It was us. I stared through the dirt and something caught my eye. Across the street, a man stood in an abandoned store front. He was focused on our office window. His black eyes seemed to catch mine with a malevolent grin. His hair was long and black, slicked back off of his forehead with a shiny gloss. He wore a beige trench coat. I shuddered and turned for a moment.
“Ricky, come here. Now.” He came to the window. “Look. Across the street,” I almost shouted.
“At what?” he said.
“The man in the trench coat . . .” But there was no man in the trench coat. He had vanished as quickly as he had appeared. Ricky gave me a withering look.
“You need to take it easy, Dee. You gotta be careful, but don’t let your imagination get the best of you. It’ll make you crazy. I gotta go pack,” he said. He was gone before I could reply.
I sat around the office for another hour. Maybe he was right. Maybe it was all just too much. I don’t usually spend much time doubting myself, but two murders, little love notes from a psycho and creepy insects in unexpected places will do that to you. I had another hit of the Jameson. I wanted to make notes, call someone, do anything that might seem useful, but my hands wouldn’t follow instructions and my brain was whirling like a demented carousel.
It was late afternoon when I finally dragged myself away from the desk. I hoped to find a little comfort at Bugsy’s. I sat at the bar and ordered a double of Evan Williams Black. A greasy looking guy with a gold band on his left hand was a couple of stools away sipping a Bud. He looked over and smiled. His teeth shone yellow-green in the dim light. I ignored him.
“Hey, Babe. Buy you a drink?” I shook my head, but avoided looking him in the eye. He sat for a moment longer, I guess to plot his next highly original pickup line. Then he moved to the stool next to me.
“Hey, Babe. I’m talkin’ to you.” He reached over and twirled a strand of my hair. Bad mistake on his part.
I grabbed his wrist and twisted his arm behind his back. He grunted and moaned.
“Yeah, but I’m not your Babe and I’m not talking to you,” I snapped.
I yanked his arm up almost to his ear and pushed him out the front door without much ceremony. He writhed and yelled, “Bitch.” I put a little more pressure on the arm and thought I heard something crack. Too bad. One of the hazards of political incorrectness.
“By the way, you might try a shower.” I snarled after him.
I heard Bugsy’s voice behind me. “Jesus, Dee. You ain’t exactly good for business.”
“Sorry, Bugsy, but you need a better class of clientele.” I drained the glass and left a ten on the bar.
I decided against the front entrance. Mr.Greasy might have decided to exorcise some of his misplaced macho angst on me. I knew the back way out. I hoped he had his tail between his legs and was headed home to greet his sweet, loving wife, but you can never be too careful.
I unlocked the door of the Focus and plopped into the driver’s seat. The interior lights went on. I almost gagged. There on the passenger seat were half a dozen dead locusts. I jumped out. My lungs were heaving and my eyes were damned near tearing. I put my hand to my waist. No weapon. I crouched for a moment, then slowly stood up and scanned the parking lot. No movement, no signs of any life except the droning of the cars on the boulevard. I went around to the passenger door and used a Home Depot circular to scoop the dead creatures into the parking lot. Then I hit the starter and headed for Cooley’s.
I parked the car beneath the oaks and gingerly approached GREAT GESTURE. No signs that anyone had been on the boat. I dialed the combination and looked down through the companionway. Again, nothing amiss. I closed the hatch boards behind me and set the deadbolt from the inside. I pulled the S and W from its hidey hole and checked the cylinder. Five brassy .357’s in the chamber. I laid it on the table. I didn’t need another drink. I wanted to be alert. I made coffee and sat.
Abaddon, the crazy sonovabitch, had been in the street outside the office. He must have followed me to Bugsy‘s and left a little gift to scare the shit out of me. It worked. He obviously knew more about me than I knew about him. I made myself a promise that I wouldn’t even empty the garbage without the .38 strapped to my hip or calf.
Chapter 8
I was lying on the settee still trying to get myself together. My mind was racing and I still felt a strain of good old-fashioned terror radiating up and down my spine. Suddenly I heard a knock on the hull.
I grabbed the .38 and raised it up behind my back. Cooley’s was a busy place, but I wasn’t used to visitors around sunset.
I unbolted the deadlock and eased the hatch open. There was a man on the dock holding a coffee cup. He was painfully thin and wore a stained gray t-shirt and green plaid pants. His feet were bare. There was a tuft of hair somewhere between duck down and simple fuzz on his chin. It looked like it just didn’t want to grow.
“Hi. Sorry to bother you. I’m Elvis. Me and Teeny live on the old Catalina down the dock.”
Then I recognized him. He was bag boy at the local Publix grocery. I laid the .38 on the nav table, forced a smile and nodded.
“I saw your light. Teeny is baking an apple pie and we ran out of sugar. Can I borrow some?”
“Sure,” I said and reached for the cup. I filled it and handed it back to the scruffy owner.
“Thanks. We’ll bring you a piece.” He padded back down the finger pier and turned back toward the old sailboat.
I’d seen the Catalina, an old 27. DREAM ON painted on the stern. Fine boat. Stout, roomy, great in light air. A few years ago some hearty soul had done a circumnavigation in one. A couple of Dad’s friends owned and raced them in the old Lake Norman days. I didn’t know anyone was living aboard, but it gave me a momentary sense of sec
urity. One immutable law of the docks is that live aboards look after each other. I went back below and made myself a sandwich. Still no booze. I washed it down with a glass of sweet tea. About an hour later another knock on the hull.
It was Elvis and Teeny with a paper plate engulfed with the biggest piece of apple pie I’d ever seen. I could smell the hot cinnamon crust and tangy apples from the companionway.
“Come on aboard. I’m Dee.” I said.
She was just over five feet tall, her blond hair stuffed up on top of her head like a sprout of broccoli. Her smile was quiet and gentle like a slow rising tide. They settled into the cockpit and she shoved the delight in my direction.
“I’m Teeny,” she said brightly, “as in The Captain and Tennille, ‘Love Will Keep us Together’, ‘Muskrat Love’, and all that stuff. They had five gold albums. A couple of them even went platinum. Mom and Dad were huge rock’n’roll fans. Just couldn’t resist. Anyway, it works for us. Elvis put his hand on her knee and smiled. She laid her head on his shoulder. It was definitely cool, made me warm inside. I felt like I was watching an old episode of schmaltz from Nic at Nite. The pie was fabulous. I dusted the crumbs from my lip and tried to make conversation.
They were both from Colorado. “Not enough water there,” was the reason they gave for moving. She was a service clerk at Publix. That’s where they met. He’d been bagging groceries for several months.
“Steady work,” he said, “and we get a discount, so all we have to do is make the slip rent.” She smiled and patted him on his skinny thigh.
“Elvis is much too humble. He’s a totally awesome computer geek. Photographic memory. Never takes a note. Remembers everything. He’s a member of the original Skeleton Crew. Cracked three cold cases this year, one in Florida and two in Ohio. The FBI even called to congratulate him.”
The Skeleton Crew was a name given to amateur detectives by Deborah Halber in a book of the same name. The cyber sleuths spend hours and days scanning old coroner’s files and missing persons databases. They try to match a body to a cold case. Some of them are pretty good. I guessed Elvis was one of them.
“So what do you do?” she asked.
Elvis looked at me apologetically, then dropped his head. A sheepish half-grin invaded his face.
“I know. Sorry,” he said quietly, “Dee Rabow, born Angelique, former Fort Lauderdale Detective, dismissed after some questionable tactics while working a murder case. Now working as a private eye. Partner, Ricky Fuenes, also a former cop . . . I won’t go on.”
He didn’t have to. What the hell else did he know about this lady in question? I shook my head.
“Cool.” I said. “So you’re a hacker?”
“He won’t admit it, but he’s the best.” Teeny’s small face beamed with pride. She looked at him. He shook his head and gave her a pleading ‘enough’ look. She stood.
“Hope you liked the pie.”
It was obvious she was protecting him. I think she wanted to bail out her Sir Galahad before he revealed the secret to the Hold Grail. The visit was over.
“Hey, the pie was perfect. Thanks. Drop by anytime.”
I went below and fastened the deadbolt. Elvis and Teeny. I needed some confederates. They were innocent kids. I didn’t want to put them in any danger, but I couldn’t help but wonder what kind of information Elvis could coax out of that computer. Maybe it was another avenue which could lead me to Abaddon. The thought of him made my teeth grind. I tried to fight the darkness in me, but I wanted to put a .38 slug in the prick before he killed someone else. Maybe even me.
Chapter 9
It was time to try Rod. He might be back from the funeral in South America. I dialed the private number he had given me.
“Hello, Dee. Just got in from the airport. Estrella is a wreck, but we’re coping. I was just getting ready to call you. What’s up?”
“Too much to talk about on the phone. I need a meeting. You and me first, alone. Then Estrella.”
“Come on, Dee. She’s overwhelmed with grief. Her baby sister . . . dead. She’s on Xanax, but even that isn’t helping. You and me . . . maybe.”
“No, Rod. No maybe. There are a couple of things you neglected to tell me. You want me on the case, we have to hash some things out and come to an agreement. I can’t operate with my hands cuffed behind me.”
The pause hung over the phone like a block of granite.
“Okay, but it will have to be day after tomorrow. Breakfast at Chico’s Hot and Fast. Nine A.M. I can give you an hour at most.”
“That should be enough. I’ll be there.”
I didn’t like the delay, but at least it gave me time to get the info Ricky collected in New York. Sure enough, he strolled into the office a little before noon. He was attempting sly, but he couldn’t wait to get it out. I smiled at him.
“Sit down, oh Sainted Sage, and inundate my consciousness with infinite wisdom.”
He poured a cup of two hour old coffee and propped his feet up on the desk.
“Okay, Dee. Cut the shit. I don’t know about the wisdom part, but I damned sure got some hard information. Estrella Martella, native of Rio de Janeiro. Old Brazilian family, apparently wealthy and privileged. One sister, two years younger, Carlita and a brother that no one seems to know much about. Estrella was an excellent student, Phi Beta Kappa, graduated with high honors. A shoo-in for law school. Beautiful, smart, Hispanic woman. A Human Resources dream. The major firms were slobbering over her.”
“So what about the sister?”
“Carlita . . . not so much. Also very beautiful, but not the star that Estrella was. In her junior year something happened. As near as I can figure, the family money dried up. Business, politics . . . who knows? Bottom line. No more dinero. Carlita had to drop out of school. I guess they were rivals, her and Estrella. Some suggestion of bad blood between them according to an advisor I was able to collar. Anyway, Estrella went on to fame and fortune and Carlita went to a pimp. Didn’t do much for the family reputation, but, hey, you do what you got to do. I did manage to get a photo of them in happier days from an old Columbia University yearbook.”
He handed it across the desk. Carlita was Eleisha, no doubt. Stunning, but stuck in the shadow of her illustrious sister. So Hot Rod had been screwing Martella, the younger. Talk about interesting developments, not to mention motives for murder. Hot Rod and Estrella had just moved up to the Ten Most Wanted list. Maybe the Abaddon thing was a simple scam to lead us away from the real killer, or killers. But why did Rod put us on the case to begin with? The man always did suffer from a serious case of over-confidence, but what’s new with politicians?
I told Ricky about the bugs in the car seat.
“Damn it, Dee. If that’s not a warning, I don’t what is. Maybe we’re getting close to something that we shouldn’t be involved in. I don’t want to ID you at the morgue any time soon. Say the word. We can do without the money. We can drop it. Let Hot Rod clean up his own damned mess. Maybe he’s learned to keep his dick in his pants form now on.”
“Yeah, we could drop it. But the girls are headless, defiled in a way beyond description. Lana trusted us. We didn’t know, but we might have been able to protect her. I can’t let it go and I don’t think you can, either.”
He drummed his fingers on the desk and looked like he wanted to spit.
Then he simply said, “Okay.”
I didn’t think Rod would talk with Ricky around. I told him about the breakfast meeting, but asked him to stay close . . . but stay away.
Chapter 10
I was at Chico’s with a hot cup of coffee and a sausage biscuit in front me when Rod came in.
He looked immaculate and dapper in a silvery sharkskin suit, white starched shirt and a red club tie. You could see your face in his shoes. He looked around to see if there was anyone who recognized him. Satisfied, he took the chair across from me.
“Hello, Dee. I have meetings, “he said, “don’t have much time.”
I star
ed for a moment, remembering the shower we’d shared, his arms around me and the way he whispered softly into my ear. I shook my head. I needed to dismiss it. I decided I could deal with that in my own darkness. Now he was client and maybe a murderer. That had to make it all very different.
“Okay, Rod. You were sleeping with Estrella’s sister.”
He looked around again, leaned forward and spoke with his hand muffling his mouth.
“Yes. I didn’t know it at first and Estrella doesn’t know it now. You understand client confidentiality. I trust you, Dee. I guess I don’t have any choice, but you have a retainer and none of this goes beyond this table.”
“So where does it go, Rod? Where does it all start?”
“I think someone doesn’t want me to be elected. I think I was set up for blackmail early on. I met Eleisha at the damned grocery store. I think she knew who I was. At first just some harmless conversation. Then she called me at the office promising information on some heavy duty rackets that were threatening to blow Fort Lauderdale into the lead on CNN. I wasn’t too keen on meeting Wolf Blitzer in person, so I listened. She was gorgeous, willing. I blew it. I admit it. One thing led to another. You know how it is.”
“Yeah, Rod. I know how it is. I damned sure should.”
“Okay. I deserved that, but I had no idea she was Estrella’s younger sister. There was something almost exotic about her. Thought it would just be a one or two night stand. Obviously it became more complicated. You saw the pictures. Now I need you. To put it bluntly, you have to save my ass. I sent you money. I made some promises. I know people. Get this done and you’ll have more work . . . and influence than you could possibly imagine.”
“You can take your work and your influence and shove it up your ass. Two girls are dead. Prostitutes . . . yeah. I used to be one, myself. Somebody has to speak for those women. If nobody else will, that person is me.”
“Sorry, Dee. I should have known you’d react like that. You’re right. Maybe for you, it’s a type of retribution, but I am going to call it justice. I like the sound of it a whole lot better.”
“So Rod, don’t hold out on me again.” I drilled his eyes with my own deadly laser.