Chili Con Carnage (14 page)

Stomach to carpet, my purse beside me and my heart in my throat, I didn’t dare breathe. Every beat of my heart felt like the pounding bass line of a hip-hop song. When my purse vibrated, I nearly jumped out of my skin.

Not here! Not now!

I wanted to scream the words and didn’t dare. Instead, I pulled the purse closer and tucked it under me to muffle the sound, closing my arms around my midriff as much as I was able.

It vibrated again.

And again, I saw the beam of my fellow breaker-and-enterer stutter-step down the hallway and into the bedroom.

Another vibration, but lucky for me, it came right as the guy singing from next door hit a note the likes of which could make dogs bark. The man with the flashlight waited. I closed my eyes and prayed. When I opened them again, I was just in time to see the beam of light exit the room and travel back down the hallway.

A minute later, I heard the front door close.

I waited. One minute. Two. Three. No way I was taking the chance that the man would either come back or that he’d purposely just opened, then shut the door to catch me off guard. I wished I could hear, and I was just about to curse that country singer forever when the music stopped and so much quiet filled Roberto’s apartment, it pressed against my ears.

Slowly, I eased myself out from under the bed. When I made my way back to the living room, I didn’t dare turn on my flashlight. I got to the front door and peeked out the window.

There was no sign of anyone out there, and I inched the door open, darted outside, and raced for the bicycle.

I was already two blocks away from Roberto’s, my legs pumping furiously and my breaths coming fast, when I stopped to think about what had happened and about what the heck was in my purse. By then, I was outside a convenience store and I pulled the bike under a lit cigarette sign (oh, how I longed for one!) and dug through my purse.

It was no wonder I hadn’t seen it sooner, I mean, what with me pretty much carrying around everything I own in my denim bag. It wasn’t until after I unloaded my entire purse on the sidewalk that I realized what was at the bottom of my purse.

Roberto’s phone.

“You really did put it in my purse at El Rancho, just like you said you did.”

I didn’t realize I was talking to myself—and to Roberto—until a couple kids walking into the convenience store gave me weird looks, and then all I did was scoop up my possessions from the sidewalk, shovel them back into my purse, and head around the corner, phone in hand.

I wedged myself down next to the ice machine and checked the number of the call that had caused the phone to vibrate as I hid out under the bed, but of course, it wasn’t a number I recognized.

That didn’t mean I was going to give up.

I scrolled through Roberto’s other recent calls and found nothing interesting.

I read his saved text messages and found nothing revealing.

I checked a saved video.

And good thing I was sitting against the wall or I would have fallen over backward.

Without wasting an instant, I hopped back on Puff’s bike and pedaled as fast as I could over to the Taos Inn.

• • •

“Nick!” I pounded on the door of his hotel room. “Nick, it’s me, Maxie. Come on, Nick, I have to talk to you.”

No response, and I’d just convinced myself that he either wasn’t there or he was really good at ignoring me when I heard the lock on the door click.

He cracked open the door.

Nick’s hair was a mess and he was wearing nothing but a pair of black boxers. In the glow of the single light outside his door, his chest looked like it was chipped from marble.

“Do you know what time it is?”

I didn’t realize I was staring until his voice snapped me back to reality. “I know,” I said, even though I didn’t have a clue what time it was. “But I’ve got to talk to you. Now.”

Nick glanced back into his room. He ran a hand through his hair. “Now is not a good time.”

“It doesn’t matter if it’s a good time. Don’t you see?”

Of course he didn’t. He still didn’t, even when I pulled Roberto’s phone out of my purse.

I jiggled the phone under his nose. “It’s Roberto’s,” I said.

All of a sudden, Nick didn’t look so sleepy any more.

“Where did you get that?” he asked.

“Roberto gave it to me. The night before he was killed, we were out at this place called El Rancho, and I went to the ladies’ room, see, and he said he put it in my purse, only I looked in my purse. I mean, the next day when he asked about it. You know, before he was dead. And I didn’t see it, and I didn’t much care because he pissed me off anyway with the way he was drinking at El Rancho and ignoring me and I didn’t know he was going to get killed, did I?”

Nick blinked. “And now you found Roberto’s phone.”

“That’s right.” I nodded. “Because I was at Roberto’s apartment, see, and—”

He held up one hand and rubbed his eyes with the other. “Is this going to be a long story?”

I snarled. “It’s going to take as long as it takes, and you’re going to be happy about it once you listen. Come on.” I stepped toward the door, inviting myself inside. “You’ve got to see this, Nick. There’s a video.”

Nick’s eyebrows rose and his gaze slipped from me to the phone in my hands. Without a word, he closed the door in my face.

• • •

It is not often that I’m speechless. And it’s never for long. At the same time I reminded myself that I was in a hotel and that there were, no doubt, people sleeping in the rooms around Nick’s. I pulled in a long breath, prepared to give him a piece of my mind. I had already raised my hand, all set to pound on his door, when it snapped open and I found myself face to face with a chesty blonde.

“Oh,” I said.

“Oh.” She gave me a look and okay, so my khaki shorts and sweatshirt weren’t nearly as stylish as her skin-tight royal-blue dress. She didn’t have to smirk. She looked over her shoulder. “You said this was work related.”

I didn’t catch Nick’s reply, just the baritone murmur of his voice.

“Yeah. Well . . .” The woman stepped into the hallway and I had no choice. It was step back or get knocked over. “Whatever.”

I watched her walk down the hallway, her silver stilettos in one hand and her hips swaying in a way designed to send a message—
You don’t know what you missed, Nick.
Or maybe it was more like
You do know exactly what you missed, and poor you, because now there’s no more where that came from.

When she was out the door and I turned back to his room, I realized Nick had been looking exactly where I was looking.

“Sorry,” I said.

Nick stepped back and opened the door so I could walk into his room.

“Sorry.” I said it again as soon as Nick closed the door.

All he did was go over to the coffee table in front of a dark-colored couch so he could close up the bottle of Jack Daniel’s that sat next to two empty glasses. Sometime before he let me in the room, he’d slipped on a gray T-shirt and pulled on a pair of jeans, and now he sat down on the couch with his sneakers and socks. When he was done putting those on, he finally looked up at where I was bouncing from foot to foot on the other side of the room.

“What’s so important?” he said.

“Sorry.” I figured it couldn’t hurt to say it one more time. I hurried over and held out Roberto’s phone to him. “I would have given it to the cops,” I explained. “But I didn’t know I had it.”

“Because Robert Lasky put it in your purse at some bar.”

Apparently he’d been listening even as Ms. Blonde and Well-Stacked was collecting her things and bidding him a hearty hasta la vista.

I nodded and patted my purse. “There’s a lot in it,” I said. “And I checked. I mean, when Roberto asked for his phone the day after we went to El Rancho. I checked really fast, but I guess the phone fell to the bottom and I suppose I would have found it eventually, but I haven’t had much of a chance to look, and I figured Roberto was so smashed that night, he didn’t know where he put his phone, anyway.”

“And . . .”

Nick hadn’t taken the phone out of my hands, and I shoved it at him. “And it rang. Well, it vibrated. Which is why when Roberto called it the day he was killed, we never heard it. Because he had it on vibrate. Tonight when I was under Roberto’s bed, it was really quiet on account of how the country music wasn’t playing then. That’s why I heard it.”

He held up a hand to stop me, got up off the couch, and crossed the room to where there was a two-cup coffeemaker on a wooden dresser. Nick took the pot, filled it with water in the bathroom, and fixed the coffee, and it wasn’t until it was done dripping and he’d poured a cup and brought it back to the couch that he spoke.

“Go on.”

The aroma of the coffee tickled my nose. It had been a long night, what with getting to Roberto’s, hiding out from whoever was in there with me, and discovering not only the phone but the video on it. Caffeine was not only desirable at a time like this, it was essential.

I glanced over my shoulder toward the dresser and the pot, still half full. “Can I . . . ?”

“Be my guest. Only you should know, I make a really strong pot of coffee.” His smile was tight, but then, what did I expect? If Nick had been up late reading or watching TV, my sudden appearance would have been an inconvenience. If he’d been asleep, it would have been an annoyance. Since he had obviously been doing something far more interesting . . .

I hated myself for it, but my gaze automatically traveled to the bed where the blankets were thrown back and the sheets were rumpled.

It was on the tip of my tongue to apologize again, but I decided it would be pathetic, so I went over to drain the last of the pot into one of the mugs that sat next to the coffeemaker. I added three packets of sugar and drank half of it down. Strong? Nick might have thought he was macho coffee man, but really, he didn’t know the meaning of the word.

Rather than mention it, I closed in on him. “It’s been kind of a long night,” I explained.

“For you and me both.” His voice was as tight as his jaw when he patted the empty seat next to him. “Sit down and start from the beginning,” he said.

I sat down, but not right there, not where Nick’s hand rested against the navy-blue upholstery. I took the chair at a right angle from the couch and set the phone on the table between us. “I looked at Roberto’s employment application,” I said, because really, that was where this part of the story began. “And I found out where he lived. And I figured if I went there, I could find out more about Roberto.”

“And what you found out instead was that you’ve been carrying around his phone all this time.”

I nodded. And took another big gulp of my coffee. “And after I found the phone and left his place, I checked the calls, only there aren’t any numbers I recognized, and I wasn’t really surprised. In spite of what some people think . . .” I made sure I looked right at Nick when I said this so he’d know he was included in that
some people
statement. “My history with Roberto was nothing more than a momentary blip. I didn’t know any of the people he knew. Well . . .” When I thought about it, my stomach soured, and I wondered if Nick had anything around to eat but decided it was probably best not to ask. I don’t think he was feeling especially hospitable. “I didn’t think I knew any of the people he knew. But that was before I knew Karmen and Alphonse and before I knew Roberto knew Sylvia.”

Nick waited for more.

I gave it to him. “So I was just messing around with his phone. You know, to see what else he might have on it. And that’s when I found the video.”

His elbows on his knees, Nick leaned forward. “And whatever that video is, you thought it was important enough to come over here in the middle of the night and show it to me.”

“Sorry,” I didn’t mean to, but I said it again anyway. “I just didn’t know what else to do. I thought about you and I knew you were staying here and I didn’t know . . .” I took another gander at the messed-up bed and Nick’s gaze traveled that way, too. “Sorry.”

He pushed a hand through his hair. “Stop saying that. It doesn’t matter. Really. Tiffany was just—”

“Tiffany?” Okay, so I didn’t have to sound quite that sarcastic. Like I said, long night, and really, could I help it? Right or wrong, the name fit the stereotype and the stereotype fit what I’d seen of the woman. “Let me guess, you met her down at the bar and she said you looked lonely and wondered if you could use some company.”

“Does it matter?”

I wrinkled up my nose. “I guess it’s none of my business.”

“Which means we should be talking about something else.”

“Oh yeah. Like the phone.” With one finger, I edged it closer to Nick. “Like I said, when I saw the video, I thought it might be important, and I guess I could have gone to the cops, but let’s face it, Nick, they’ve got my sister in jail. Half sister,” I corrected myself before he could. “I didn’t know if it was smart to bother them with this, so I figured I’d show it to you first. And you could decide what we should do with it.”

I guess the coffee had started to work its magic because some of the starch went out of Nick’s shoulders and like it was a jacket he took off and on, he slipped effortlessly into cop mode. “So tell me about this video. What’s on it that looks so important?”

“Well, I’m not exactly sure.” Before he could take this to mean that I’d bothered his . . . well, what I’d bothered without a good reason, I hurried on. “But it shows Roberto. And Puff. In the same place. Together.”

Oh, this got his interest, all right.

Nick picked up the phone and I scooted over to sit on the couch next to him. Together, we watched the video.

“Roberto,” I said, pointing to the face on the screen. The camera pivoted from the close-up of Roberto to a shot of a room with metal shelves along one wall that were stacked with packing boxes. “And that’s Puff walking in the door.”

I pressed my lips together. I wanted to say more, but I didn’t want Nick to miss out on the rest.

At this point, Roberto must have put down the phone and why was a no-brainer. Whatever was going on, he didn’t want Puff to know he was making a video of it. That would explain the funny tilted angle of the picture when Puff sauntered into the room.

“You got the product?”

The audio wasn’t the best, but there was no mistaking what Puff said. Just to be sure Nick heard exactly what I’d heard, I glanced his way, and when I saw him frown, I knew he had.

“It’s all right here.” That was Roberto’s voice, but since the phone was on the table next to him, the video showed only Puff. “You got the payment?”

Just like it had the first time I saw the video, the wad of cash Puff pulled out of his pocket astounded me. If Puff had access to that kind of money, why did he travel in a trashy trailer? Why would he bother to work the Showdown circuit at all?

Puff plunked the money down on the table, and briefly, the video showed Roberto’s hand swiping it away.

“Here. Here.” I scooted closer to Nick and pointed at the screen. “This is where Roberto—”

“Shh.” Nick poked me.

Puff reached out and the next thing we saw, he was holding a box about the size of a shoe box. He lifted the lid and looked inside and whatever he saw, he was obviously satisfied. He nodded and closed the box.

“The rest is already at the loading dock,” Roberto said. “I’ll have our guys transfer it to your van.”

“Puff doesn’t have a van.” I filled in the necessary information for Nick.

“Shh,” he said again.

Puff didn’t so much walk to the door as he backed away toward it. “Pleasure doing business with you,” he said. “As always.”

When he walked outside, Roberto picked up the phone and the scene jumped. The next picture was of Roberto.

“It never hurts to have a little insurance,” he said, and he smiled.

“That’s where it ends.” I’m thinking Nick already knew that because he put the phone back on the coffee table and sat back. “Roberto and Puff knew each other. Puff, he never bothered to mention that.”

“No wonder.” Nick ran a hand over his chin. “It’s obviously some kind of drug deal.”

Exactly what I was thinking!

I was so darned pleased—not to mention surprised—that Nick and I were on the same page, I sat up and slapped his thigh. “It makes sense. Because Sylvia said Roberto was a chemistry major back in college. And chemistry . . .” I would have slapped my forehead if I wasn’t in such a hurry to tell Nick the rest of the story. “There were chemistry books in Roberto’s apartment.”

“Stop right there.” Nick got up and took his coffee cup back over to the dresser. He set it down before he turned to face me, his arms crossed over his chest. “I don’t want to know about how you were in the apartment. That way if the cops ask, I don’t have to lie to them.”

“Would you? Lie for me?” I didn’t expect this kind of loyalty, not from Nick, but I wasn’t about to argue. Or sound as ridiculously grateful as I felt. “You have to know, someone else was at Roberto’s apartment, too.”

“When you got there?”

I shook my head. “I was in the bedroom looking around, and someone else walked in. That’s why I was—”

“Under the bed.” Nick actually looked relieved that this particular part of my story made sense. “Who was it?”

I leaned forward so I could look at him hard. “Hello! I was under the bed.”

“Man or woman?”

I closed my eyes and relived the scene. “There weren’t any lights on,” I told him. “But . . .” A couple more moments of thinking and I was sure of myself. “He had a flashlight and when it slid over the rug, I could see a little. It was a man. It had to be. He was wearing work boots and they were big. Not like a woman’s would be.”

“Good. Then that tells us something at least. Did he say anything?”

Again, I took the time to think about it. “There was this music playing from the apartment next door, and it was loud, so even if he did, I probably wouldn’t have heard it. But there was only one person. I’m sure of that. I would have heard someone else. You know, walking around. Or I would have seen their shoes. Or the light of their flashlight. So I’m going to say no. He didn’t say anything. There wasn’t anyone there to talk to.”

“And what did he do?”

“He was looking for something, I guess.”

“You?”

My stomach went cold. “There was no way he could have known I was there.” I said this mostly to make myself feel better, but I didn’t sound nearly as sure as I would have liked to. I glanced up at Nick. “Could he?”

His shrug didn’t exactly fill me with confidence.

I got back to filling him in on what happened at Roberto’s, partly so I could make sense of it and mostly because it kept me from thinking that someone might have followed me. That someone was watching me.

“He walked around the apartment. He came into the bedroom and looked in the closet. When he walked back into the living room, that’s when Roberto’s phone vibrated, and I thought he was going to hear it for sure.” At the time, I’d been so wrapped up in making sure the man in the apartment didn’t hear the phone, I hadn’t given in to the panic or fear. Now, both emotions collided somewhere between my heart and my stomach and I wrapped my arms around myself. “If he found me—”

“He didn’t.” I was so freakin’ scared, I didn’t even realize Nick had come back to the couch and sat next to me. Not until he put a hand on my arm. “You’re here and you’re safe and whoever it was, he either found what he was looking for and left the apartment with it. Or . . .”

He didn’t have to say it. I saw Nick’s gaze slide to Roberto’s phone on the coffee table and I sat up like a shot.

“It was Puff!” Even I couldn’t believe it, but I knew it had to be true. “Roberto had a video of Puff doing some kind of drug buy. And Puff must have known it because he wanted to get his hands on Roberto’s phone. That’s why he was in the apartment. He must have called the phone from out in the living room. He didn’t hear it ring, so he figured it wasn’t there, but if he’d been listening more closely . . .”