Authors: Wayne Batson
She stared at me, exasperated, hands gripping the steering wheel way too hard. “What?” she demanded. Lightning flashed.
“The victim,” I said. “In the video, her lips were moving. I think she was talking. Maybe someone in the FBI can read lips.”
“Son of a—” She peeled away from me so fast that the momentum slammed my passenger door for me.
Lightning flashed again. Thunder cracked and rumbled. I’d counted seven seconds. The storm was getting close.
Divine violence. I was about to bring a little of that myself.
Chapter 15
The late afternoon thunderstorm was raging, and Spinnaker Sales was hopping by the time I walked through its glimmering doors. The showroom floor was packed with clusters of smooth-talking salesmen like G and saleswomen too, though they had a decidedly different approach to luring customers. Apparently, it was working. I’d never seen so many rich people grinning with the prospects of a new toy.
I found G near the back of the showroom. His back was turned. He was staring at a clipboard. His head bobbed slightly, and his jaw was working, apparently counting. Probably figuring out how many thousands of dollars he’d made that afternoon. He looked smooth as ever and in charge. He didn’t look like someone who’d recently found a corpse.
“How were sales this morning?” I asked.
G must have jumped ten inches off the ground. He spun around, and even his carefully controlled expressions couldn’t hide his shock. It was something close to panic. “Wh-what are you doing here?”
“Is that any way to speak to one of your valued customers?” I asked.
“You’re no customer,” he said, drawing back a measure of restraint. Then, forcing out a little superiority, he shot, “You were staying at Motel 6 for crying out loud.”
“What?” I asked. “They left the light on for me. It’s a good chain.”
“Get out of here, or I’ll call the police.”
“Really, G? You’re going to pull that card out this early? We haven’t even gotten started.” I drummed fingers on my silver case. Amazing how each new context inspires the imagination so very differently.
G swallowed. He gazed around the showroom, maybe hoping an associate would come to his aid. Maybe looking through the glass at the outside and wishing he was standing out in the storm. Or maybe just searching for a rock to hide under. “What…what do you want?” he wheezed.
“I think…I think I want to help you, G.”
“Help me?” he spluttered.
“The way I figure it, whoever you’re protecting didn’t like me poking around about his special Sun Odyssey.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Spare me.” It was my turn to look around the showroom. “You have a manager’s office somewhere? A place we can talk without this going public?”
G swallowed. I guess he thought about the body…put it all together. “You…you’re not going to kill me, are you?”
“Not unless you attack me first,” I said and then added, “That’s what the other guy did, the guy you found in the boat this morning. What’d you do with him anyway, G?”
“Shut up,” he hissed. “Back here.” He spun on his heels, marched back behind the counter and down the hall.
He opened the door to a tidy little office. There was a small desktop computer, a filing cabinet, a couple of chairs, and a large window. The desk was more of a counter that fit two sides of the square room.
Soon as we entered, I put the blinds down. I shut the door and said, “Sit down.” I put my case on the counter so he could see it…and wonder. “Now, I’m going to tell you some things. And I’m going to ask you some things. You’re going to tell me the truth. If you do, you’ll walk out of here, and you’ll have my protection.”
“Wait, I…you said you weren’t going to kill me.”
“G, I don’t have to kill you. I can do other things. Now, are you with me?”
He swallowed and nodded.
“You had the registration number of the Sun Odyssey on file. You lied about it. It was there. Right?”
He nodded.
“Good so far,” I said. “After I left, you called the owner. And the owner put a hit on me. Did you know that?”
G nodded again. “I mean, I called him, but…I didn’t know…didn’t think about the hit.”
“Of course you didn’t, G. You could care less if someone takes a dirt nap as long as it’s not you. But I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that, maybe you’re a little worried about your own skin right now. Now that the hitter’s in a box, and I’m still walking around, your boss is liable to get nervous. Maybe he’s thinking you’re a loose end. Am I close?”
G suddenly became a bobble-head doll. “He…he sent some men, for the body you left here. He wasn’t very happy about it.”
“Now, I can take care of this for you,” I said, stepping so close to his chair that my shadow fell over him. “Your boss has done some very bad things, and he’ll keep on doing them unless someone makes him go away. I can do that, G, but I need some information.”
He wiped a trickle of sweat from his forehead and gave a tentative nod.
“Let’s start by you telling me who he is and where he is.”
He cursed and shifted on his chair like he had noose around his neck and any moment the floor was going to drop open beneath him. “Don’t…don’t know his real name.”
“That’s okay, G. You just give me whatever name he gave you. Give me his port. Give me his phone number. Everything you got.”
“Forget this!” G tried to stand up but ran into my chest like a brick wall. He cursed again. “You don’t know, man. This guy is nuts. He’ll carve you up and throw you to the sharks! No way I’m crossing—”
I smacked him, open palm…hard. He blinked up at me with that wide-eyed shock most men get when they get hit, really get hit. All the memories of childhood beatings come flooding back in. He blinked again, and I could see the indignation and defiance coming back.
“Look, G, I don’t have time for this petty arrogance. I need to know where I can find this guy. He’s hurting women. Did you know that?”
“So what!” G spat. “Who cares if he smacks around a few b—”
“I do.” My voice dropped two octaves. I couldn’t hold it back. The room darkened and my skin went white-hot until I was the only light in the room. White light. Searing, pure phosphorescence. There was the sound of rushing wind, deep and ominous, like an approaching tornado. Papers whirled wildly. G’s immaculately combed hair blew around his face.
At once, I willed myself to unmask partially while, at the same time, triggering a Netherview. The office was still there, but so were other things: the stone and mortar walls of an ancient chamber, cobwebs shrouding every corner, and creeping lichen spread across many patches of stone. I watched the membranous lichen, remnant shreds of iniquity, spark to whitish-green fire and burn away. And then, I saw G for what he was. I read his real name. I saw his heart, saw the fear and all the lies he’d told himself for a lifetime. I saw his inner man. It was an ugly, shriveled thing. I almost had pity on him.
Almost.
“Gimoaldo Alonzo Vasquez! Tell me what you know!” my voice boomed, but only between the two of us—my mind to his. If someone had been listening at the door, they’d have heard nothing.
G shook in his chair. “F-F-Four Seasons Marina!” he blurted. “D-don’t know the berth. It’s under Dyreson Industries.”
“His name?” I thundered.
“I…I don’t know. He called himself Gray. That’s it—don’t know if it’s a first name or what. Just ‘Gray.’ He has an accent sometimes, maybe…maybe South American, I don’t know. He doesn’t explain a lot. All I know is him and his partner sail outta Four Seasons.”
I ended the Netherview. Wise not to use it for too long at a time…unless I wanted to go to war. A Netherview attracts things. Unpleasant things like Shades…and worse.
The overhead light came on. My voice went back to normal. “I’m going to see him tonight,” I said. “After tonight, you won’t have to look over your shoulder anymore.”
“Not tonight, man,” G said, still shaking. “He doesn’t go out ‘til Friday night. That’s when he takes the girls out, y’know?”
“Where is he now?”
“I don’t know, man. I swear!”
“I believe you, G.” I turned and reached for the door. “You won’t call him…warn him.”
“No, no, I won’t, no freakin’ way.” G swallowed. “Wh-what are you, man?”
“G, I’m going to give you some advice,” I said. “The best advice you’ve ever gotten in your life.” I leaned down and whispered next to his ear.
When I backed away, G looked like he’d seen a ghost.
Maybe it’s wrong to feel this way, but I love messing with people’s categories.
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
“With all due respect, Deputy Director,” Special Agent Rezvani argued to her cell phone, “you told me if my findings became something more than a hunch…that I should call you. I’m calling now. We need to reopen Smiling Jack.”
She listened to his response, then yanked the phone from her ear, and glared at it like she was going to take a bite out of it. “But, Sir,” she growled into the mouthpiece, “We’ve got new evidence. No, I know we still don’t have a body…look, Sir, it’s video footage. We have Smiling Jack’s latest kill on video. What do you mean? It is NOT more of the same. It’s—”
Rez’s mouth snapped shut and she listened for another three minutes straight. Finally, she’d heard enough. “Look, I know the Director doesn’t need the Bureau getting another black eye right now. Opening a case, especially one like Smiling Jack won’t look good, but Sir, we’re talking about the lives of at least five more women. Just give me—”
He’d interrupted her again.
And now her blood was really boiling. “Excuse me, Sir, but have you mentioned the possibility to Director Peluso that the FBI doing nothing to prevent five more Smiling Jack murders would be much worse for her administration?”
Rez had to hold the phone away from her ear to avoid the blistering string of angry counter arguments salted with enough expletives to EVAC a shipyard. The Deputy Director ended with a very pointed career question for Rez.
She ignored the question and almost managed to restrain herself. “I have plenty of leave, Sir! I’m not certain when I’m coming back to D.C. I’m on vacation, remember?” She couldn’t have pressed the red button on her phone any harder. She screamed at the hotel room and slid her phone across the desk. It hit the side of her purse and bounced back a few inches. Just then, the throbbing began.
“No, not now!” she hissed. But her migraine headaches didn’t listen. And this one came pounding in as if someone was repeatedly shoving a javelin into the back of her skull. She grabbed her purse, snapped the cap off her pills, and dry swallowed them down. Then she stumbled to the bathroom and splashed some water into her face. It didn’t help. She clutched her head with her hands as if trying to prevent an explosion. She glared at herself in the mirror and wondered if she’d just thrown her career away.
The phone trilled and vibrated in the other room. Rez darted to it. She didn’t look at the number, flipped it open, and said, “Sir, I’m sorry, Deputy Director. It’s just that—oh, Mr. Spector. No, I was expecting someone else. Yeah, yeah, I can meet. Now’s fine. I need to get out. Maybe get a drink…or three. I don’t know the area. Wait, just a second.”
Rez put the phone down and grabbed the hotel’s “Amenities and Attractions” booklet. A few pages in, she found something and picked up the phone. “There’s an Italian place called Pompano’s off Emerald Coast Parkway on North Walton. Say in a half hour? You need a ride? No, okay, see you then.”
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
It was only fifteen minutes to the restaurant, but the hotel room felt confining, so—head still throbbing—Rez left right away. The Miracle Strip, as the Panama City locals called the main beach drag, stretched along ten miles of the whitest shores in America. Towering resorts, condos, and hotels lined both sides, and there were more clubs and hotspots than you could shake a swinger at. Even on a Wednesday night, the strip was hopping.
Rez wished she knew the area a little better because her directions took her out of the modern touristy area into a slightly seedier part of town. Still, seedy for a beach town wasn’t so bad. Rez wasn’t too worried when she found that Pompano’s didn’t have its own parking area, but rather shared a little lot with the adjacent strip mall and apartments.
Latin music pounded from one of the little clubs nearby.
That’s all I need,
Rez thought, pressing her fingertips into her temples. Night insects made their own music. Rez left her car beneath the only streetlight that worked in the parking lot. Huge palmetto bugs dove beneath the light. One landed on the roof of the car right next to Rez. She cringed and flicked the thing away. Call it what you want, but it looked like a giant roach.
Rez clambered up the single flight of concrete stairs that led out of the lot and took a look at the shadowy alley ahead. Blank wall of the strip mall on the right, four-story apartment complex, complete with black iron fire escapes, on the left.
I can take the alley, or I can traipse all the way around the apartments.
Rez decided on the alley. Superior grades in hand-to-hand combat in the Bureau, a black belt in Taek Soo Do, and private lessons in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu told her she could take care of herself. Carrying two guns didn’t hurt either.
Still
, she thought,
overconfidence in closed in spaces could get someone killed.
Chapter 16
I was getting more than my money’s worth out of the assassin’s sports car. It still had a quarter tank left when I parked in the lot a hundred yards or so behind the strip mall where Agent Rezvani and I were to meet.