“It’s okay,” she said. She slipped a hand in and slipped out a shiny silver flash drive. I could slip that into my new laptop the way all the kids at the coffee shop were doing it.
“What’s on it?”
“I’ve got some spread sheets. Accountants can connect the dots from what’s here.”
“Show the living are paying up the dead?”
“Something like that.”
“Great.” I reached over and let her place it in my palm.
“I’ll hold onto this. Call it insurance. I’d like you to sell Mr. Moates on a meeting with Valentine Alexeeva.”
“That’s not going to happen. He’s been trying to court Ryan for months. Ryan’s not interested in whatever he wants to peddle. He’s a climber looking for the next rung, but he’s also dangerous. Ryan doesn’t want to be involved with someone like that.”
“We’re well aware of Mr. Alexeeva and his aspirations. You help us get close to him, I might forget where I got this spread sheet.”
“Ryan’s going to want to know why this is happening, and there’s not really anything in this for him.”
I looked around the town house, nothing exquisite, but not a shack either. You could live comfortably here. I could live comfortably here. It was better than my new construction.
“I can’t believe you don’t have a bit of experience in influencing Mr. Moates’ behavior,” I said. “You got to keep Owen after all. I’m sure that took some persuasion.”
Her cheeks colored a bit at that but she didn’t break eye contact, defiant but not quite ready to mutiny. She might have legal high ground, but pushback would draw attention and media coverage to the end-of-life investments. Glass houses.
“I’ll see what I can do,” she said.
“I’ll be in touch.”
Chapter 30
I knew there’d be a bit of a wait.
The next morning, I got up early and went for a jog, keeping the burner phone with the number I’d given Holton in my pocket and keeping an eye over my shoulder as always. I realized I had too many things that might be gaining on me.
The jog was the first real exercise since I’d been out. My legs were stiff, and I got winded pretty easily, but it was good to breeze through the streets, taking in the smells, good and bad—the occasional waft of food cooking from the restaurants, rot from the garbage bins. There’s little variation in smells in a cell. Even the worst odors that struck me served as reminder I was no longer incarcerated.
The flurry of imagery wasn’t bad either. Shop windows stuffed with crap for the tourists, street performances, artists displaying canvasses, even the flashes of pastel colors on the buildings that deluged me with peach, orange, sea green made me feel free.
After I tired myself and sweated, I sat on a bench for a while across from a refurbished Creole cottage where a guy in an elaborate band uniform stood on an orange crate, frozen holding a saxophone to his lips. He’d propped a sign beside his open red-lined instrument case. It read: Sax Machine. Tip to Activate.
Whenever a passerby dropped in coins or bills, he’d burst into movement, blowing a jazz tune, fingers dancing on keys, knees bending, body swaying. If no more coins fell, he’d wind down. I could identify. I felt a little like a wind-up man myself, not really acting of my own volition at the moment.
After I’d cooled off, I stopped at a smoothie juice bar where the flavors and mixes were displayed on huge chalk boards behind a counter with large blenders awaiting handfuls of strawberries and other victims. I wound up with something bright, icy and orange in a clear plastic cup which I carried out to a round table in front of the shop.
Jael came along as I drew sweet crystals through the straw, tugging out a laptop while settling across from me.
“I’m really just tapping into what you could get yourself.” The expression was sullen again.
“But I enjoy the pleasure of your company,” I said, looking at the screen to see what I might learn from the Jefferson and Orleans Parish assessors.
I wanted at least an idea of Alexeeva’s acknowledged property holdings.
Sequestering a missing child on his own land might not be the best idea, but if he owned a property with a convenient dungeon, that might be worth checking out while Hollie and Ryan Moates simmered.
My smoothie’s level sank gradually as I got the hang of scrolling on Jael’s computer touchpad, and once we’d noted a primary residence and a few other bits of land, we branched from Orleans to Saint Tammany Parish to scan the North Shore area. The property values were high up there. It was the kind of place Alexeeva would want to have a home. And sure enough, a $1.2 million spot on the lakefront.
I had a friend who moved to California once upon a time. When he’d come back to Louisiana for visits, he claimed people would take him out to dinner in L.A. just to hear stories about how low property values were in the Bayou State. A million and change would get you a mansion the same amount wouldn’t even make a down payment on elsewhere. Had to be a pretty nice spread. A few more taps on the screen, and Jael offered an overview of the area. Looked pretty isolated, tucked behind a gate and wall. Who was to say what might be located on the grounds or what he used it for?
If it wasn’t isolated enough for concealing a prisoner, it might have other uses. I made a note of it.
Then we moved on to another request.
“I haven’t found your ex,” Jael said. “I have turned up some things of interest.”
That included the fact Sandra had a Facebook page after all, under her maiden name. I’d searched earlier myself, but I’d always felt inept and had run across only an empty account in the name of Sandra Reardon with a faceless silhouette as a profile picture. This time the algorithm worked somehow in my favor.
Her page hadn’t been updated in a while. Or at least if it had, her privacy settings were ratcheted down so tightly I couldn’t see much more than a profile picture and that she’d changed her cover photo to a shot of pilsners arranged on a shelf, shiny and pristine and sending off dancing needles of light. In the profile picture, Sandra looked about the same, but a small stranger stood by her side.
Juli was taller than I’d seen her last, of course. Her hair fell to her shoulders in a tangle of blonde waves. It was darker than I remembered, and her smile was slightly askew. She was caught in one of those moments of trying to figure out how to smile correctly for a photo, showing teeth, not quite getting the upturn at the corners of the mouth.
Her features had taken more shape, gained definition that had been lost in doughy cheeks in the snapshot in my head, and her eyes showed sparks of understanding and experience that had before been fresh wonder.
I choked even though that wasn’t what I’d come for. A backwash of rueful sorrow overwhelmed the rush of elation at discovery. Moments and years had been lost, and the eyes looked at me and accused.
I stared back for a while, wishing I had bourbon to splash into my drink, but I composed myself as I realized Jael had reached over to pat the back of my hand. The sunglass lenses ticked up just slightly as eyebrows twitched upward in a hint of a sympathetic ripple. That caught me before weeping set in and got me back on task.
As I scrolled down, the Facebook page let me see a few older profile pictures, just tight frames of Sandra smiling, separated by occasional picture-and-script bromides like “use your mistakes as stepping stones.” If I had the skills, I could probably use Jasso’s pontifications to create epigram images of my own.
Since Sandra’s “friends” button offered a view of nothing due apparently to privacy settings, the saccharine-message images came in handy in another way. Comments from friends showed up there. That at least gave me people who’d been in somewhat recent contact.
I remembered a couple of the names and zeroed in on one who’d been a fairly close chum from when we’d been dating: Teri Beal. She’d drifted away after a while once we were married, but I seemed to recall occasional messages between the two. She was worth a check, especially
since her profile at least suggested she worked at a restaurant in the Quarter called Armantine. That wasn’t too far away, on Dauphine. I could squeeze that in. I thanked Jael who shifted back to stoic with a nod. I felt I was wearing them down.
I went by around three, aiming for a time the staff might be on hand and gearing up for the dinner hours without being in full siege mode. I found a door in back with a buzzer for staff entry and pressed it. When I got an answer, I asked for Teri. I looked non-threatening enough when someone came to the door that I was told to wait. Just a couple of minutes passed before she stepped out wearing a white kitchen uniform jacket with a meat thermometer in a small pocket on a sleeve short enough to reveal tattoos on her forearm. Her reddish hair was cut shorter than I remembered, and she wore a little black hat over most of it. Without much makeup and a little flushed from the kitchen, she looked a bit older but still familiar. She recognized me too after a second or so of looking at me with a cocked eyebrow, and curiosity melted into a deflated “Oh, boy.”
“I haven’t heard from her in a while, and she wouldn’t want me telling you if I had,” she said.
“Nice to see you too, Teri.”
“Si, this is my job, come on, don’t make a….”
“I just came to talk. Do you know if she’s okay?”
“She had quite a ride. It was tough on her after you went in.“
“This guy Finn.”
Her eyes widened at that. I couldn’t be sure if it was surprise or a bit of her own concern seeping through.
“She was looking for an anchor.”
“He’s that stable?”
“Look, I didn’t know him well.”
“Where’d she meet him?”
“I don’t know. A club, I think. Someone bumped into her and she dropped some glasses and he was close by, was nice while everyone else was clapping.”
“I’m worried about Juli. Did you have any sense…?”
She took my arm and guided me back through the exit, letting it close so that we had the privacy of the street. At least there wasn’t much foot traffic at the moment.
“I don’t know anything, but I can tell you the guy always made me kind of nervous. I wasn’t around him much, but there was a sense something was simmering there.”
She really had a way of helping me feel better.
“Have you heard anything from her?”
“Not in the last couple of months. I got the occasional message after she went to Florida, but lately it’s radio silence.”
“Have you tried to call?”
“Yeah, her old number’s not in service and she wasn’t taking calls anyway. Sorry about that.”
“Would have been too easy. I can’t see much on Facebook. You were her friend there. Anything?”
“The last post was probably something at the beach with Finn.”
I wanted to ask if he was anywhere near Juli, but that wasn’t really productive.
“Can you check her page, see if there’s anything that might give a hint? For the sake of my kid? I don’t want to bother Sandra.”
“I guess I could do that.”
I offered my burner.
“Now?”
“You’ve got a couple of minutes before the dinner rush.”
She sighed, gave me a look that said seriously with scare quotes, but she leaned back against the pastel-colored wall and accepted.
The log in was clumsy for her, but eventually her thumbs proved up to the task. She got into her account, clicked a few times and offered over her view of Sandra’s page.
I had to scroll past a string of birthday wishes to which Sandra hadn’t responded and then I hit a couple of memes she’d re-posted from others about drinking. Sidesplitters like: I hate when people say you don’t need alcohol to have fun. You don’t need running shoes to run, but it fuckin’ helps.”
Jesus, what had I been missing on the inside without Facebook privileges?
Eventually, I scrolled past a timeline selfie of Sandra in a pink hoodie, showing a few more lines in her features than I remembered, some put there by the ordeal I’d created, I’m sure.
I found the beach pic mentioned a little further down. Sandra in a bikini and beach jacket beside Finn, tall, thin and shirtless in jams. I’d checked before to see if he had a Facebook page, but I hadn’t found anything, but now, here he was. His eyes were kind of sunken and he didn’t have much of an expression, though the one eyelid that folded slightly downward made him look threatening. They posed in similar fashion in another pic at an outside party. I couldn’t read much in his appearance, but my gut tightened at the sight of him. Somehow putting a face with the name made it easier to visualize the terrible things that had been haunting me.
“I need to go,” Teri said. “Things are not getting done while I’m out here. That needs to be logged off before I go.”
“I won’t post mean things about your friends.”
“Come on, Si. I can’t trust that. You could try posing as me to reach Sandi.”
“Will you send her a message? I just want to know Juli’s all right. You can call me if you hear anything or give her my email address.”
Because I had one now.
She hesitated but nodded and took the phone to key in a quick message, accepting my email and phone numbers as I dictated it. She turned the screen toward me so I could see what she’d entered. Then she let me watch her send it. The process was a little awkward, but it worked.
I should have had Jael set up keystroke tracking ahead of time, but I hadn’t been thinking that far ahead.
I left Teri with my number written down at least. I didn’t really expect her to call, but I was glad I’d made the effort. I felt like I’d done something.
That sense of satisfaction got me thorough a couple of hours.
Chapter 31
Alexeeva’s spread on the lakeshore was in a community called Eden Isle sandwiched between I-10 and Pontchartrain Drive. I’d worked my way out from checking out holdings in the city that the old agency reports had included. This one was newer and Jael had pinpointed it.
The Eden name had been challenged by Katrina as she’d beaten, battered and dumped water on the area, but money had poured in, and elegance and grandeur had been restored. The address I sought wasn’t on the shore proper. A network of canals stretched in from Pontchartrain and snaked around forming little peninsulas as the real estate folks called them. Alexeeva’s place sat on a little jut of land bordered by wrought iron fencing protecting the drive from the street.
He could have done worse. The house was a white columned colonial with a fountain in front and a guest house. I could see it from the road even though it faced the end of the peninsula which was almost parallel to the street. It must have felt like having an island.
If life settled down, I wondered if I might have a shot as a realtor. I could wear a suit and pitch the notion of a dream home while discussing spacious living areas and spots great for entertaining. “That? No, it’s not mold; it’s just a discoloration. Paint’ll take care of it.”
Later, after I had Juli safe.
I cruised along a couple of streets after doing a U-turn at the end of the drive in front of Alexeeva’s. I figured I had a few passes before someone phoned the sheriff’s department about a suspicious character. I’d had the car washed, and I was dressed nice in a Lacoste shirt and creased khakis. I could be a guy in the market for a million six.
Eventually I ran across a little park area with a pavilion and pulled to a stop. A man with silver hair, wearing a track suit worth a month’s rent, sat in a motorized wheelchair. A Filipino man in a golf shirt and khakis sat beside the chair on a little wooden bench.
I walked over and said hello. The attendant said hello back and introduced himself as Danilo when I approached.
Phlegm rattled a bit in the old man’s throat. Then he coughed and spat a wad that arched into the grass. It wasn’t an aggressive move. His expression didn’t change. He was present, but he wasn’
t really with us. He stared into nothingness, hands resting, motionless on the wheelchair arms. The middle finger on each hand was circled by wide, ornate gold rings. The pattern was braided rope, I decided. I wasn’t sure what it tied him to. If they were supposed to be a magical ward they’d failed. Whatever voodoo curse he was under, it wasn’t letting go. It was a curse even privilege couldn’t break.
Danilo had to be bored. I told him I was looking for a summer place and that I was curious about the house at the end of the peninsula but wasn’t ready to call a realtor and hear a pitch on a house that didn’t even have a sign up.
He allowed the owner threw elaborate parties from time to time but wasn’t there much. Maybe he’d sell even if it wasn’t on the market. The small talk came easy. I channeled the old days in interrogation rooms when putting guys at ease would often lull them into telling you what they’d done: mugged a tourist, slashed their own grandmother, whatever.
“I’ve known quite a few people that have worked there,” he said. “The man’s tough to work for.”
“Picky?”
“That, but strange too.”
“How so?”
He looked at his silent charge, who must have had his moments but seemed like much less of a challenge in comparison.
“He plays games, gives ’em bonuses based on how they compete against each other.”
“In what, the home version of Jeopardy?”
“Races to finish cleaning different rooms first. He shrugged, fun ones, I guess. but weird little mind games too.”
“How so?”
“I heard he had a gardener once. Figured out the guy was kind of a sad sack and not too bright. He told the man he had a cousin in Belarus who needed to come to this country, but she needed a husband. Green card woes, all that. Showed him a picture of a pretty girl, got him convinced she was interested in him. Wanted to come South for the sun and warm weather.”
“What’d he do? Tell him she needed money for a passport and garner his wages to help her come to the U.S.?”
He shrugged. “Probably wasn’t paying the guy much anyway so savings would have been nothing to him. I think it was somehow for the fun of it. Strung him along, conveying messages from her, acting as the go between, sending back poems the gardener wrote to her, passing back the usual from her, come-ons. Poor guy fell for this made-up cousin. Talked about how she was coming to America to see him and all that. He made plans. Then she got sick. Had to wait on tests, finally word came it was bad, then he got the reveal. Not real, and he was fired. Tore the guy up. The feelings are real, you know.”
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