Chapter 15
Adrenaline surged but I froze, suppressing the cop instinct to evade, reach and draw on the gunman standing on my steps. Seeming calm, he made no move, just stared at me with clear pale eyes beneath longish dark hair. He wore a lightweight trench coat, not unusual in this weather, and had a high-end knit scarf concealing his lower face. Average tall, average looks – except for those bottomless gray orbs – Caucasian, with very light eyebrows. That clued me in to the fact that he had on a wig to cover what must be blonde hair.
“Who are you –”
“– and what do I want?” Part of a smile reached the upper half of his face, contrasting oddly with the slim revolver, suppressor pointed unwaveringly at my chest. “Just to talk, I assure you, but you need to divest yourself of your firearms first, so we can be civil.” English accent, though I wasn’t savvy enough about such things to place him better.
Slowly I slid my Glock from its holster and set it down on the counter. “You’re that bastard Audi driver.”
“And you the feisty Subaru. Put that into the freezer along with your holdout and sit down on the balcony,” he said, his aim never budging.
As I complied by taking the compact revolver from my ankle and setting both guns gently into the freezer my mind flared with memory. “You killed the kidnappers.”
“Brava. Well reasoned. Balcony.” He pointed. “Sit. I’ll get the coffee.”
I turned, keeping arms raised, and walked out onto the platform. Settling into one of the white-painted wrought iron chairs there, I folded my hands into my lap to still their adrenalized shaking. The rational part of my mind wasn’t terribly frightened. After all, he could have killed me already, and with the suppressor no one would have noticed. In the warehouse I hadn’t heard any shots.
Or maybe I had. I thought about the coughs and the thuds.
As the man rummaged in my kitchen I reached stealthily into my trouser pocket and drew out the two-shot .22 derringer I kept there. He stepped onto the balcony with two mugs in his hands, setting one in front of me. His gun was nowhere in sight, so I kept mine under the table.
“I’m trusting you with hot liquid, Cal. Please, just enjoy it and don’t do anything to spoil the moment. I really have no desire to hurt you.”
I nodded in tentative agreement as I took a sip of the brew, not revealing that I had a weapon available. He’d made my coffee black, as I liked it. His appeared to have been creamed. I hadn’t even heard the fridge open. Eerie quiet, this guy.
“You know my name.”
His eyes crinkled again. “It is on the door plaque.”
“But you used my nickname, Cal.”
“A lucky guess.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I don’t much care.”
“Touché. What’s your name, nick or otherwise?”
The man sipped beneath the scarf, a two-handed trick, and then sat back without answering. Sounds of the street below echoed against the mishmash of classic San Francisco Victorians and more modern styles. Across the sidewalk an old woman watered plants on her balcony, an irrational act in this weather.
Nothing as strange as people, especially in a city.
“Call me Thomas,” he finally said. “It’s not my name, but it will do. Good coffee, by the way. Hard to get this side of the pond, outside of an upscale restaurant or speciality cafe.” He put the extra syllable into that word, spe-ci-A-li-ty.
I found myself liking the sound of his voice despite the opening threat. A charming rogue, then. “It’s an expensive machine. I like good coffee.”
“Then we have more than one thing in common.”
“Oh? What else? Fast cars and guns?”
“True, but not what came to mind. We both detest people who abuse little girls.”
My blood surged with memories I’d rather forget, of men who tried to do things when I was much younger, with Dad away and Mom drunk or high, passed out on the sofa. Some things are hard to forgive, but I tried.
Lucky, I’m lucky. The words ran through my mind as a mantra, lucky it never got very far, lucky I was able to scream and get away, always with the fear hovering among the nightmares, relieved only when Dad had come back home and Mom’s parties were banished again for a time.
“You’re wandering,” Thomas said, waving a diffident hand.
“Sorry. You’re right.” My voice tightened. “Very right. Kidnappers disgust me, but I wouldn’t have put them down like dogs.”
“No?” He stared at me until I dropped my eyes.
“I don’t think so. Not…not in cold blood like that. What was it? Did your gang fall out, or the plan go wrong?” I raised my chin defiantly.
“Yes, it did. But it wasn’t my gang, or my plan. I’m a contractor, not a blackmailer or kidnapper of children.” He sounded sincerely outraged.
“Contractor. You mean hit man.”
Thomas glanced away as if I’d said something distasteful. “Are you a gumshoe? A private dick?”
“I prefer independent investigator.”
“And I prefer contractor or cleaner. A hit man is a thug for hire, a mercenary. I tidy up certain specific problems for a limited clientele. I won’t do just anything, or anyone. I have a code.”
“A code. How nice. And you get paid well, I suppose.”
“You just took a ten-thousand-dollar check from a distraught mother. You’re not going to cash it?”
I reddened and my eyes dropped, though the set of my shoulders remained defiant. “Point taken. But that doesn’t make us the same. I did a good thing to earn it. I wouldn’t have killed those people.”
“Unless you had to. You have two righteous shoots under your belt.”
“Nobody died, though. Most big city cops have a couple by the time they retire, at least in this country. Goes with the territory. But there’s a difference between self defense and murder.”
“I’m not going to debate terminology. That little girl is alive and safe because of me, mostly, and a bit of you. They were about to kill her and run when I took care of them. They heard the sirens and they saw you chase me into the warehouse. You put her at risk by calling the police, not me. You forced my hand.”
I slammed my mug down, slopping coffee, and sat forward. “You didn’t have to bring me there. You could have gone anywhere else. You could have driven up the freeway and tried to lose me again, but instead you led me right to them, and the cops too. And by the way, that was some pretty close timing on the bomb. You might have killed Talia.”
Thomas spread his hands and inclined his head. “Poor planning on my part, I suppose.” He sipped again, but did not seem in the least contrite.
I shook my head. “No. I think it was perfect planning. You used me and the cops to distract them, then popped them just like you intended to. Somehow this heist went wrong. Maybe they didn’t steal everything they were supposed to, or maybe they didn’t deliver it all and held some out. Or maybe they were going to kill the girl, I’ll give you that. I’ll never know, I suppose. Did your boss Houdini send you to, how do you English say, ‘sort them’? Tie up the loose ends? The girl goes home, the dead guys turn out to be dangerous felons with records as long as your arm, the case is solved and the incident gets featured on next season’s America’s Dumbest Criminals? But nobody ever finds the pills or money.”
“You’re forgetting something, dear. I’m a professional and they weren’t. I could have done them in at any time with no fuss or mess. Then I could have set the place on fire, perhaps with a remotely triggered device rather than a timer, and then dropped the girl off on her own corner none the wiser.”
Nonplussed, I stared at Thomas, running left-hand fingers around my ear to push my straight dark hair back, angling my head as I usually did to minimize view of the right side. “Okay.” I stared some more, and he gazed back calmly. “Okay, well. You watched to make sure we got away.”
The sun in Thomas’ eyes came out again, but he said nothing.
“I still don’t get why you didn’t do it all yourself.”
Thomas’ nose crinkled. I really wanted to see the smile he hid. I guessed it was a heart-stopper. Unless maybe he had scars like mine?
“Perhaps I liked what I saw in my rear-view mirror,” he said.
I snorted. “Right.”
“Don’t believe me?” Thomas shrugged. “Then you’ll have something to chew on for a while. Thanks for the coffee, but now I must be going.” He stood.
I jumped to my feet, putting my hand in my pocket on the derringer. Questions still seethed in my head. “You can’t just walk out.”
“Whyever not?” Thomas stared pointedly at my hand as if he knew what I had there, and then looked into my eyes.
“I…I need information. The mother. What about Mira?” Keep him talking, keep him engaged.
“What about her?”
“She was in on it somehow.”
Thomas raised one of those incongruous white eyebrows. “Oh?” Amusement danced in his eyes again.
“Yes. Something about her responses was off. And if it was me, my kid, I would have called the cops the next day, when she found out the heist hadn’t happened. Only she didn’t find out, because she only talked to the monitoring center for about five seconds, not long enough to really check to see if someone had opened the drug warehouse with her stolen identity like she claimed.”
“That’s it? That’s all you have?” I could tell he was grinning at me beneath that scarf.
“Ten grand.”
“Come again?”
“Mira said ‘ten grand.’ Most people would have said ‘ten thousand dollars.’ Who uses words like that?” I paused for his answer.
“Cops? Gamblers? The Mob? Or, people who have no lives outside of work? The ones who watch police shows, thrillers and organized crime dramas?”
I shook my head. “Maybe, but I don’t buy it. I think she was part of it somehow.”
Thomas cocked his head in apparent disbelief. “A mother using her own child like that?”
“A few years back a mother strapped her two kids into a Mazda and rolled it into a lake because her new boyfriend didn’t want a family.”
“Not this mother. She loves Talia, whatever her faults.” Thomas’s calm demeanor stirred slightly. “I’ll tell you something I shouldn’t, but you have to promise me you’ll leave well enough alone.”
I snorted. “A promise made at gunpoint is meaningless.”
“Do you see a weapon in my hand? Mine was just to make sure you put yours aside. You can walk out of here any time and you’ll never see me again.” He paused, then made a shooing motion. “Go on. Run along. Take your phone with you. Call the coppers. Or pull out your popgun and try to shoot me before I get away.”
I pressed my lips together and took my hand out of my pocket. “No thanks.”
“I figured. You want all the answers, but I’m not going to provide them. I’ll give you this, though, because I’d rather you didn’t dig further. You’re right. The plan did go wrong. The girl was never supposed to be part of it, but the crew wanted more leverage on the mother. She was going to get a cut for selling them the way in to the warehouse and deny all knowledge, but they wanted insurance, so they took the girl.”
I leaned back against the doorframe, mind spinning. “Right. That fits. But Mira’s been sending all her extra money to her ex and if there’s no payoff to her…”
Thomas shrugged. “The check’s worthless. I doubt she has a thousand in her account, much less ten.”
“Crap.” The epithet thudded flatly.
“Indeed. C’est la vie.” He sidled toward the stairway, keeping me in sight. I suppose it was a trained habit; I had no intention of drawing on him.
“I wonder where the crew’s cash went,” I said with a cock of my head. “They must have collected when they gave Houdini the pills.”
“Yes…that is a mystery.”
I cleared my throat, lifting my chin. “Did you kill Bill?”
“No. That was the kidnappers being stupid. They’ve answered for their idiocy, don’t you think?” He turned to go.
“Wait, Thomas. Why did you do this? Why involve me?”
“I don’t want the authorities looking for the mysterious stranger that rescued the kidnapped girl, that’s all.”
“Bullshit. There’s something more.”
“Maybe you impressed me with your driving skills.”
“That was after you’d already started following me. Why even let yourself be seen?”
“A foolish impulse, I suppose. You’ve never had one of those?”
“Never,” I deadpanned, and he laughed.
“I could make a report about you,” I said.
“You won’t.”
“Why not?”
His face twitched beneath the scarf, perhaps the beginning of a smile. “Because you appreciate justice. Even if it’s imperfect.”
“Is that what this was?”
Thomas shrugged, backing down the steps. “You decide.”
“But why come talk to me?” I called.
“Toodle-oo,” was all he said, and then he was gone down the stairs and out the unlocked lower level door. I watched from the window as he fast-walked into the dimness.
I really needed to get that new hardware installed.
“Cheerio, guv’ner,” I breathed, and took the guns out of the freezer. Holstering the pistols the better for my body heat to rid them of chill, I shut the upstairs against the threat of further rain before putting my own mug in the sink and rinsing it, the ritual helping to calm me as excess adrenaline bled off.
His cup I slipped into a ziplock bag and then placed it in the rear of the refrigerator. He’d never taken his gloves off, so fingerprints were out, but DNA was the coming thing in solving crimes. Maybe his saliva would prove useful somewhere down the road.
Opening a cupboard, I brought out a bottle of wine, not even looking at the label. Though not much of a drinker, I grew up in California with Napa on my tongue and felt in need right now. Setting a wine glass on the table, I poured it full and then stared at the empty surface.
The check. The card. The bastard. He’d filched both of them.
Taking a long drink of my wine, I sat down at my kitchenette table and pulled out the photocopy of Mira’s business card I had made. I read it again, trying to fend off the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach at the hit man’s theft of ten thousand dollars. Putting that aside with difficulty for the moment, I forced myself to think.
The photocopy of the card read, Cole said you can help – PLEASE CALL RIGHT AWAY. And what had Mira mentioned at her house? “Cole Sage was the only one who had connections to people like you.” Which was silly. Mira didn’t need any special connections to hire a P.I. And who would call me, a middle-class professional, “people like you”?
I stared at the copy of the card.
“I suppose in your business…,” Mira had also said. As if the P.I. trade were unsavory.
But what if that wasn’t what she’d meant?
All the little clues added up suddenly. It had been staring me in the face the whole time.
The card had not been meant for me.
People in your business. People like you. Thought you would be a man.
The card had been for Thomas. Thomas who, in his line of work, wouldn’t want direct contact with a client. Who wouldn’t keep a phone number for long. Who might have a dead drop somewhere that Cole would know about, maybe activated by an anonymous web address. That’s how it would be done.
And Mira hadn’t written any words on the card. Just the number.
So, instead of calling Mira, Thomas had added the plea for help and the reference to Cole in order to thoroughly pique my interest. Then he had put the card in my office night drop, directing me onto the case. Then he deliberately let himself be seen in the Audi – perhaps not the first time, but certainly the last – provoking me into following him and leading me to the girl.
&nb
sp; I shook my head to clear it and gulped more wine. Too many loose ends. Too many questions. I hated both, but unless I somehow found Thomas again I wasn’t likely to get any answers.
I can always call Cole, I thought. It’s a good excuse to see what he knows about it, or how Mira knows him.
Might Mira be one of Cole's conquests? No, Cole wasn’t really like that…I didn’t think. I could ask how he’s acquainted with Thomas, why he trusts him…meet Cole over coffee, maybe a light dinner. I’d put on a dress.
God, I hate dresses, I thought. Forget him. Just forget him. He’s as inaccessible as…
As Thomas?
Just my luck. All the genuinely interesting guys I’d met recently were out of reach – hooked up, anonymous, drunks, dead – okay, those last two overlapped – too young, too brash, too…something.
Was I too picky? Mom said so.
Glass in hand and half-empty bottle in the crook of my elbow, I descended the stairs to the main floor and my darkening office. Intending to throw back the curtains and enjoy what fading light made it past the drizzle, I placed the bottle and the glass on the desk and stopped, startled.
A neat, inch-thick pile of hundred-dollar bills sat in the exact middle of the desk calendar, bound with a rubber band. They didn’t have the fresh-printed look of a bank stack. Before I even picked up the bundle I knew what it would contain.
Ten thousand dollars.
I sat down in the dimness, forgetting the curtains and staring at the pile for a moment before picking it up and riffling it. Well, I had earned it…though Thomas might be setting me up for the future. Taking his money might give him leverage. But I had bills to pay and poker to play, not to mention the body shop for Molly.
Feeling suddenly generous, I pulled ten Benjamins out of the pile for Mickey and slipped them into an envelope, put the rest into the floor safe, and then refilled my glass, feeling the wine filtering into my bloodstream.
Looking at the phone, I contemplated calling the cops, my new buddy Brody perhaps. I had enough on Thomas to cause him trouble, with a physical description and that accent to identify him – unless that was as fake as the wig – but he was right.
I wouldn’t turn him in.
Why not? Not because of the money or his charm, his refraining from killing me or even because of a dozen loose ends I hoped he might someday tie up.
Because he was right. I do appreciate justice. Even if it is imperfect.