by D C Young
I finished typing in the next name on the list, hit enter and got up out of my chair. I left it to start the search while I went to answer the door. As I reached for it, Tammy came down the hallway from her room rubbing her eyes.
“Is Sledge here?”
“Yes.”
“Isn’t it a little early?”
“All of a sudden you’re the household timekeeper?” I laughed, poking fun at the exchange we’d had in the early morning hours after I’d tried to sneak into my own house; the same one in which I sometimes felt the reality that I was raising two budding young adults a little too strongly. Tammy shrugged and continued toward the kitchen just as Sledge’s heavy hand hammered on the door. I opened it quickly.
“You alright, Sam?” he asked in a casual tone.
A little bit embarrassed with myself, I stepped back out of the doorway and responded, “I heard the bike.”
“Hum, yeah,” he muttered as he stepped sideways through the door.
“You know, Sledge, I never asked what your real occupation is.”
“I never thought it mattered.”
“It doesn’t, but I suppose I’m curious.”
“I sell the duck insurance,” he answered without hesitation.
“You sell insurance?” I had been expecting him to say that he was a special operations assassin or something like that where they needed big, mean, intimidating dudes like Sledge. Insurance salesman was probably as far away from what I was expecting to hear as it was possible to be.
“How else you think I could afford that bike?”
“You sell a lot of it?” I asked, thinking that nobody in their right mind would ever tell him no.
“I do alright,” he responded amiably. “It’s pretty damned good insurance.”
That pretty much put an end to the conversation. My mouth was open to speak, but no words were able to form there.
“So, how did it go last night?” he asked. “Get any leads out of William Forrester?”
“I got a lot of leads out of William Forrester, but I think they’re probably useless.”
“What do you mean? He give you bad info?”
“No, he gave me very good info, but I don’t think we can use it.”
“What are you talking about, Sam?”
“Well, I have a list of names, but they’re people we probably shouldn’t be messing with. I meant to call you this morning and tell you that we needed to find ourselves a new approach to all of it. It might be best for you, Caroline and Taz to keep a very low profile while I work this some more. I’m going to probe into it and see what I can dig up, but this is already looking way too big for us.”
“Too big,” he huffed and continued on toward the kitchen. “Where’s this list of names?”
“You mean this list of names?” Tammy asked, holding up the notebook toward Sledge. “Mom, why do you have these people’s names written down? Are they…”
“Tammy, you need to put that down and stop being nosy. This is a very serious case, it could be dangerous and you don’t need to be in the middle of it.”
“Huh! The way I remember it, I’m the one that got you the first lead on this,” Tammy retorted. “So, I’m sort of already in this case.”
“Tammy,” I snapped. “Just let us talk. Why don’t you go back to your room and find something else to get into? Just stay out of this. It’s too dangerous.”
Tammy retreated. She knew that when I got a certain tone in my voice that the argument was over.
Sledge had taken the notebook from her during our exchange and was scanning the list of names. He let out a whistle and tossed the notebook on the table before sitting down.
We stared at each other for a few, long seconds while listening to Tammy rummage through the refrigerator and then pour herself a glass of juice.
“Is it okay if I use your computer for a little while?” she asked me meekly.
“Sure,” I replied, then turned to Sledge and said. “Let’s take this into the office.”
He waited until I had closed the door and we were seated opposite each other before he spoke. “Those are some big names,” Sledge said.
“Too big,” I repeated.
There was another long pause. Suddenly Tammy called out from the kitchen. “Mom, why did you do a search on Jasmine Bain?”
“No reason, just get out of that and play a game,” I responded.
“She’s on the list. You were searching the people on the list, weren’t you?”
“Tammy!”
“Geez. Sorry,” she muttered.
I turned back to Sledge. “based simply on what I’ve found out so far, its actually my professional opinion that you, Caroline and Taz need to take a step back and leave the investigating to me from here on in. The people I’m going to have to approach are the kind that can make arrangements for your Harley to go boom, you know?”
“But it’s okay for you to keep looking into it? You know, your minivan or your house going boom can kill you just as dead.”
“Yes, but I can go places and do things that you can’t. Besides that, I have some friends who are, for all practical purposes, out of reach; even for these people.” I nodded toward the list. “Just leave it to me and let me do my job, huh?”
“I don’t know,” Sledge mumbled. “I don’t like the idea of leaving you high and dry. I feel sort of responsible for dragging you into this.”
Before I could respond to him, Tammy yelled out from the kitchen. “Mom! Sledge!”
“Tammy, we’re trying to talk.”
“Please come in here! You’ve got to check this out.”
We both stood up quickly and returned to the kitchen.
“Tammy, Mister Sledge and I are trying to have a conversation.”
“Look!” she ordered, turning the laptop around and pointing to the photo on the screen.
“Jasmine Bain,” I responded. “I thought I told you to close that and play a game.”
“No! Look! Mom!” She was pointing to another person in the photo. It took me a second to take my eyes away from Jasmine, look at the face she was pointing to and then make the connection. Before I could get the name out of my mouth, Tammy shouted once more.
“It’s Rennie!”
She was right, it was my friend… our friend, Rennie. He wasn’t casually in the photo either. He was meant to be there. In fact, as Tammy read the story included with the photo, it became quite obvious that Jasmine Bain and Rennie Telfair were well acquainted.
“Who is Rennie?” Sledge asked after Tammy had finished reading the story.
“He is a very good friend of ours,” I responded. A slow grin built across my face as I realized that I’d just found a way in. “And a way to take advantage of a weakness.”
“A weakness?” Sledge asked.
“Actually, more like a point of contact. Based on the caliber of people we’re going up against, the best course of action might be to get in, snatch Taylor out and escape with nobody getting hurt. It’s not usually my style but I doubt we have a better choice.”
“So we’re not giving up on this,” Sledge grumbled.
“Let me see what I can do, okay?”
“Sam, I don’t…”
“You’re going to have to trust me, Sledge,” I interrupted. “Leave the investigating to me. I’ll let you know if I need any help, okay?”
“Fine,” Sledge sighed.
Chapter Twelve
Rennie Telfair liked tea time, he really did, but he had never liked tea. A mixture of two fingers of Kentucky’s finest bourbon and three fingers of Coke, in precise measure, of course, was better suited to his tastes. His daddy had preferred RC Cola in the mix, mostly, because he was a personal friend of Claud A. Hatcher of Colombus, Georgia, who had come up with the concoction; as granddaddy Telfair and he had always called it. Rennie took after his granddaddy in his preference for Coke. The two of them were still arguing over how Rennie had been ruined. Though both his daddy and granddaddy had been dead fo
r years, Rennie watched the conversation take place at every afternoon tea, except whenever he traveled to California.
In general, being a psychic wasn’t all that bad in Rennie’s eyes but listening to and watching his dead kinfolk argue was certainly one of its drawbacks. So, he escaped to California as often as he was able. He had a bookshop set up there to pass the time, mostly. The shop did provide some modest income on occasion, but he didn’t really need it. Books, magic paraphernalia and all things paranormal were hobbies of his; the more bizarre, the better.
He was in his office at the Essence Bookshop when he had received the call from Samantha Moon. Sam had accepted an invitation to spend a portion of their family vacation at Rennie’s home in South Carolina one weekend a few years before. The place was called Seagull Point and it had been a great time for the children at the beach. It had also been a great opportunity for he and Sam to get better acquainted. He’d been delighted when her call came in and had invited her to come see him for afternoon tea. Sam had laughed, but accepted the invitation.
“Gladys,” Rennie called out to his assistant, who also doubled as a clerk in the Bookshop.
“Yes, Mister Telfair?” she asked.
“I am expecting Miss Samantha Moon for tea. Do make certain that she finds her way into the parlor?”
“As you wish, Mister Telfair,” Gladys responded.
Rennie was aware that Miss Moon was a vampiress and wouldn’t be able to consume tea any more than he could. He remembered her drink of choice and smiled at how similar they were when it came to certain matters of preference. He went to the bar fridge and selected a bottle of pinot grigio. He had purchased the vintage on a trip to Sonoma the previous year with Samantha in mind. Rennie set the bottle in a bucket of ice and poured his own drink of bourbon and Coke; a head start, if you will.
His family had been drinking the distilled spirit of Kentucky since the 18th century, in fact, even before it was referred to as bourbon. His great granddaddy and granddaddy even made a sizable portion of the money, with which they bought the land and built the stately home on Seagull Point, from making certain that thirsty folks in the south eastern counties of both South Carolina and Georgia had plenty to drink during Prohibition. There was even a long running joke in his family that the psychic powers that were passed down from his mama to him had been brought on by the consumption of bourbon, though his mama never touched the stuff.
“Devil in a bottle,” she’d called it, though, from what Rennie could tell, she didn’t hold any particular grudge against the devil. She had one against Yankees though and she took up his granddaddy’s side of things whenever there was a discussion about how those damned Yankees got off telling people what they could and couldn’t do; a sentiment that might have been more appropriate in the 1920s than in the latter 20th century. They still carried on about it whenever they haunted about at Seagull Point during afternoon tea, which was probably the reason he needed something stronger than tea to drink at that hour.
“Mister Telfair,” Gladys called out, interrupting his thoughts about his mama and other kin. “Miss Samantha Moon has arrived.”
“Miss Moon,” Rennie beamed, clapping his hands together as he rose to meet her. “Welcome. Welcome. Will you join me for some afternoon tea?”
As he greeted her, he extended the glass of wine and she smiled. He knew she was recalling a conversation they’d had at Seagull point when she and her family had visited.
“You didn’t slip any of that ‘Devil in a bottle’ in here, did you?” she laughed.
“Why of course not,” Rennie frowned. “I reserve the best stuff for myself. A bit selfish, but…”
“It’s in your blood,” Sam interrupted.
“And all the more reason for you not to get any ideas about my usefulness as a vitamin supplement,” he quipped, picking up their previous conversation as though it had been scripted.
“Not hardly, Rennie,” she laughed, picking up her part. “I wouldn’t touch the stuff, straight or in a mixed drink.”
“You don’t like Coke either, I take it?” Rennie laughed.
Sam burst out laughing. Rennie always seemed to have that effect on her. He lightened any mood she was in as soon as she entered his orbit.
“Wow!” Sam exclaimed. “It seems as if we were standing in the parlor at Seagull Point only yesterday and yet…”
“So many waves have washed up on the beach since then, huh?” He smiled at her took a long drink and then beamed. “It’s so good to see you.”
“It’s good to see you. I have to admit that I have missed your company.”
“You don’t have to admit it, my love. I know you’ve missed my company. I am a delight.”
The two were soon quite caught up on what they had been doing. Rennie asked about Tammy and Anthony, delighted over how far along Tammy had come with her gift. Sam told him about the last vision she’d had and how she had handled it so casually.
“Well, now, a ride on a Harley Davidson motorcycle does out-trump so many other things,” he laughed.
“It won’t be long before I won’t be able to keep her out of my business. She’s already sticking her nose in a little more than I’d like.”
“Ah… she’s seventeen…”
“Soon to be eighteen,” Sam broke in. “It’s become entirely impossible to hold her back much longer.”
“I’m sure it has but you’re not here to talk about your kids and catch up,” Rennie said abruptly. It was one of his many quirks to suddenly turn serious in the middle of a lighthearted conversation. “You’re here on business, what’s up?”
“I’d like to ask if you can set up a meeting for me with Jasmine Bain,” she replied, matching his abruptness. It was the best to deal blow for blow with the likes of Rennie Telfair.
“Jazzy?” Rennie asked. “What do you need with Jazzy?”
“I think she can help me with a kidnapping case I’m working on,” Sam replied.
“A kidnapping case? Well, now, let me in on this, I love stories of intrigue.” He leaned toward her in anticipation.
“Do you remember a conversation we had when we first met?” Sam asked.
“I will never forget the day we met,” he beamed. “It brought a sweet blessing into my life.”
“Then you’ll also recall how you told me that you would reveal nothing about your case unless I came to visit you at Seagull Point,” Sam announced as she rose up from her chair and started toward the exit.
“Tit for tat, huh?” he frowned.
“Tit for tat,” Sam responded.
“Well, then,” he laughed. “I’ll call you once I’ve set it up.”
“I’d appreciate it, Rennie. A family and a girl will too.”
Rennie watched her leave his office. “A family and a girl, well now…” he muttered, and then took a long sip of his drink before reaching for the phone.
Chapter Thirteen
It was impossible not to love Rennie Telfair. In fact, Rennie had become something like a father figure to her in recent years. When Jasmine Bain received his call and asked if she would meet with him and a friend of his, she couldn’t even think of turning him down. She was on location for a film, so she wasn’t home, but she was due back in L.A. for an appearance on one of the nighttime talk shows to do an interview about the movie she was currently shooting.
She’d been glad to get the break and head back to the city. Being on location was often quite dull. Mostly, she sat around in her trailer all day and waited for someone to call her to the set. There was a shoot schedule, but the current director wasn’t one who followed the schedule to the letter like others she had worked with before. Had been anyone else, she would have put off the meeting until they wrapped up shooting, but seeing Rennie and engaging in his eccentric manner was sure to break up her dull routine. So she agreed to see him after the interview was over.
He didn’t tell her much about the friend who was coming with him, for all Jasmine knew, Rennie as presenting a n
ew love interest, though she couldn’t guess what sort would fall for him. He was the type who everyone loved to be around to break up the monotony, but she feared that an extended engagement with the man would be maddening. She was considering the thought when the intercom buzzed and her assistant, Jack’s voice followed.
“Miss Bain, there is a Mister Telfair and a Miss Moon to see you.”
“Send them to my green room.”
“Will do.”
“Jack!” she called out.
“Yes, Miss Bain,” he responded.
“Do you have any word on where we are on the shoot schedule?”
“You’re probably not going to be on set tomorrow.”
“So, can I stay in L.A. tonight?”
“I’ll check and get back to you.”
“Jack!”
“Yes.”
“One more thing.”
“Shoot.”
“Do we have any Coke?”
“Any what? I know we’ve got Diet Coke but I doubt there’s any regular.”
“Never mind.”
She finished her conversation with Jack only a couple of minutes before there was a knock at the door.
“Miss Bain,” another of the backstage assistants called out. “Your visitors.”
Jasmine moved toward the door and pulled it open.
“Rennie Telfair,” she said, moving into her best impression of Scarlet O’Hara. “I do declare it has been ages since I’ve laid my baby blues on ya. You get on in here and give me a hug!”
“Why Miss Bain, you might just pass for a Georgia Peach yet,” he retorted.
“I’ve been working on it,” she laughed.