The Palm Reader

by Christopher Bowron

  “What happened to him?”

  “He got popped. I not know who did it.”

  For the first time that night, Jack did not believe the Russian. What game is he playing?

  Eli changed the subject. “Like I say, Jack Walker, this is boring.”

  Jack tried to read the brutal man, but his face was like porcelain without a crack in it. “My cousin was murdered a few days ago.”

  “You want pity party, Walker. We no do it, if that is what you want. What is his name?”

  “Joshua Portman.”

  Eli shook his head back and forth slowly for emphasis. “We no do that . . . kill family members. Although I might have wanted to kill you. There is no benefit in killing your cousin.”

  Staring at Eli, he saw it was true. “I believe you, but now my grandfather’s missing.”

  Eli shook his head and laughed, “You come here? You think I tell you if I killed your cousin and grabbed your grandfather? I promise you right here, I did not do any of it.”

  Again, Jack believed him. A jolt of electricity passed through him as he realized that he shouldn’t be here. He’d been wrong. He needed to get out. Now!

  “You come back here after you call police on me. What is your purpose? Cut to the chase. I tell you yes or no. I thought we might have a little fun tonight. Like, you tell me what you want, we get that over with and we talk about your Gator days.”

  Jack’s head swam. The illness plaguing him was taking a strong hold. He found it difficult to think clearly.

  Eli showed the first signs of irritation. “Look, you are sweating all over my furniture. You have a minute left to tell me something interesting.”

  “Or what?”

  “Your time is dwindling.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-eight

  BORIS PULLED OFF THE highway, driving slowly along the ramp, turning onto Lumsden Drive. For his entire life, the man had never experienced a moment of failure. During his criminal career, he often got only one chance. Two chances? You were a dead man. Everyone knew that, but Boris hoped he had not overstepped his boss’s lenience.

  The club was always busy on a Friday. People came from all over: Orlando, Ocala, St. Pete’s. He pulled in front of the garage and pushed the auto button above the rearview. He wondered if it was for the last time. Only time would tell. He loved the big BMW, a present from Eli a year back for long-standing loyalty.

  The door opened and he pulled inside, like he had done a thousand times before. He realized something was not right. The workbench had been left open against one of Boris’s rules. Even the police had not found the secret entrance a week back, but if it was left like that?

  Boris worried their hidden agenda had been found out and cursed. Another thought crossed his mind. What if it was not an accident?

  He stepped out of the car, careful to not make unnecessary noise. His gun was in the bottom of the canal, back at Walker’s place. He cursed again. He would need to manually take care of any intruders. Boris smiled and his eyes brightened. He liked snapping necks. It was easier than one might think, especially with the great strength he possessed in his hands.

  He stepped onto the descending staircase, pulling the bench door shut behind him.

  CHAPTER fifty-nine

  LOLITA WASN’T SURE THE vehicle could handle the 110 mph it cruised at. A slight wobble in the tires made the ride most uncomfortable and nerve-racking. Hernando did not seem to have a problem with it, though she questioned whether he was in the bliss of ignorance as he operated the car.

  “Maybe you should slow down to catch the next exit. You’ve earned your bonus.”

  “Okay, lady.” He slowed to a more comfortable speed, the wobble not so noticeable.

  “Take the first right.” Within a few minutes, they pulled into Aversions’ lot. She paid the driver, who happily accepted the cash on top of the credit card fee.

  At the front of the place there appeared to be a long line of mostly couples waiting to get in. What does it mean? She ambled over, moving up with the line. With all the people around her, she easily found the opportunity to talk to a group of younger couples who stood waiting. Ignoring their questioning looks trying to size her up, Lolita asked, “Is there a special function here tonight?”

  One of the girls laughed. “You don’t know?”

  She shook her head while reading the girl’s face, which said: What are you doing here, anyways?

  “It’s lifestyle night.”

  The light went on. Being a very sexual being, Solomon had attended such events in his youth, though in a homosexual setting. Orgies, they’d been called back in the day.

  She shook her head and asked sweetly, “They allow that here?”

  “It’s a club, ma’am. As long as you’re a member, no one can do anything. If you don’t mind me saying, I doubt they’ll let you in as a single. You have to be a couple, or a guest of a couple, if you know what I mean.”

  Lolita smiled. “Yes, honey, I do. These big ol’ bones have seen more than you can imagine. What if I bought you all a nice bottle of whatever you’re drinking tonight? They do have bottle service to your table, right?”

  One of the guys spoke up. “Why not? We get you in and you’re on your own.”

  Lolita stared him down. “Don’t you worry, big fella, you couldn’t handle what I have to offer.” When she laughed, the young man did not retort. Instead, he got a pensive look. “So, we have a deal?”

  The group of six looked at each other and, when no one rejected the plan, the first girl said, “Sure, why not?”

  “I’ll not bother you when we’re inside. Here’s a hundred bones—it should take care of the bottle. I’m Lolita, by the way, and thank you.”

  The girl happily accepted the cash.

  Eventually, they made it to the front of the line. Lolita became quite antsy, troubled about Jackson—worrying she might be too late. She could not have arrived much later than him, and was surprised not to see him in line.

  The seven of them paid their fees to the woman behind the glass. Lolita was last in line and the woman stared at her and frowned.

  Lolita smiled a wide, toothy grin back at the cashier. “I know what y’all’s thinking. I’m a sex therapist, honey. These kids have paid me to show them a thing or two.” She passed across her Lolita ID.

  The cashier slid it through the scanner and shrugged. “Okay, have a good time.”

  Lolita separated from the young people once they approached the security room. While civil rights disallowed civilian pat-downs, guns were plentiful and the club crowds loved to bring them along. Everyone had to do the “perp walk,” as it was lovingly referred to at Aversions, when the guests stepped through the metal detector. It was the same operation as the airports, except the machinery was bought secondhand and might not pick up everything.

  Her companion group had already passed through security and hit the stairs to the night club. Lolita heard them clapping and congratulating each other. They finally got inside. Lolita knew the drill and stepped onto the foot patterns on the floor, following them while the large machinery got busy winding around her body. She smiled, seeing the man with the wand standing at the end of the line. Although he was so much shorter than her, he never got on his tiptoes to wand her hair. Instead, he bent to wand her shoes. Lolita took a deep breath as she was cleared to go in. If she’d been caught with a gun, she would be facing big time. Three strikes and Solomon was a lifer.

  She entered the massive club, filled with gyrating, dancing couples along with the strippers on multiple stages and tabletops. The entire scene seemed tantalizing and hedonistic to Lolita. Still, she had to ignore it and focus on faces to find Jackson. It took her a good ten minutes to locate Walker, and to her shock she found him sitting with a man who fit the description of Eli Romanov. Not knowing what else to do, she ordered an iced tea and tried her best to find the ladies’ room. There was another line there and it took her longer than expected. When she returned and tried to blend in with the w
ild crowd, it was not easy—a big and tall man dressed as a female.

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  JANIE AND PERRY STEPPED carefully down the stairs. A motion-detector light flickered on as they reached the bottom. In front of them was a heavy steel door with a coded entry lock. She cursed under her breath. “Damn!” There was a keyhole on the lever. These types of locks could be a bugger to open. She got on her knees, knowing it might be a finicky mechanism.

  Jamming the lock with picks she said, “That was quite the performance back there.”

  “You made it all the easier, Janie. Never kissed an older woman.” He looked boyishly shy. “Now, in my mind, I know we wanted it to look believable.”

  Janie blushed. “A good hard kiss might have sufficed?”

  “I didn’t detect a lot of resistance coming from you.”

  “The situation was complicated. I couldn’t—”

  “I’ll remember that in the future.”

  Janie probed with the picks. She smiled. She had not minded what took place between her and Perry, though she did feel like a wild cougar during the act. Click. She turned the handle and the door opened.

  “There ya go, girl.” Perry almost clapped.

  “Not you, too. Don’t call me girl.”

  “Whad’ya mean?”

  “You and Jack, you both listen to too much country music.”

  “It’s not so much that; it’s just how we talk.”

  She lowered her voice. “We need to be quiet now.” She opened the door to a thirty-foot, lit hallway with two doors on both walls and a single door at the end. They moved quietly and tried both doors on the right, which proved to be storage closets—one full of files and the other loaded with cleaning materials.

  “I’d love to get my hands on those files,” Janie commented, and Perry nodded.

  The first door on the left led to a massive room. She flipped on the light to get a better look. The space was full of props, sets, beds, S and M paraphernalia, along with lighting for photography and filming. Farther into the room, there were a couple of offices behind large glass windows, full of monitors and computers. The far wall was a little out of context with the rest of the area, being made from concrete blocks.

  She peeked through the other two doors. The one on the end appeared to be a staircase heading upward. “Jack was right,” she muttered. The next door opened up to a large, opulent office with a mahogany desk. The walls were filled with monitors linked into the building’s surveillance system. Three other screens were tuned in to various sporting events. The fresh smell of cigarette smoke indicated someone had been here recently.

  She returned to the room with the cameras and sets. Pulling Perry in behind her, Janie closed the door and explained, “I don’t know what it is, Perry, but I don’t think prisoners would be held close to the brains of an operation. That room has to be Eli’s private office. We don’t want to get caught in there. It’ll be game over.”

  “Okay. I’m getting a little creeped out. You think they make snuff films in here?”

  “Do not want to think about that, but sex films for sure.” She stared at the stone wall. “That damn wall looks out of place.”

  “Yeah! It reminds me of Lord of the Rings when Gandalf and the fellowship end up at the door to the Mines of Moria.”

  “What?”

  “No, really, if these dudes want to use prisoners for snuff films, whatever, they want the product close.” Perry walked closer to the wall and Janie followed. “Look at that.” He traced a line in the sandstone brick. Then he found another four feet over, and one running across the top. “That’s a door. It’s not well hidden, which normally isn’t a problem if you’re not worried about close inspection. I feel like I should be making a few mighty incantations like Gandalf. Hey, look at this.” He pointed to a solitary block with no mortar around it. He pushed it and the door swung inward.

  Janie looked up at Perry and planted a sweet kiss on his lips. “I didn’t bring you along for no reason.”

  “Help where I can, my queen.”

  Janie pushed the section of wall as far as it would go. Stepping in, she pulled Perry along with her. Her shoulder against the door, she pushed the lock mechanism shut behind them. “We don’t need any surprises.”

  Perry nodded, looking around at what appeared to be an actual dungeon. The only light, a small nightlight, was plugged in the wall near the entrance.

  It took a moment for Janie’s eyes to adjust, but the room was a large rectangle, with jail cells along one wall filling up most of the room. “Hand me that flashlight. If they took Gramps, this is where he’ll be!”

  Janie turned the light on and scanned the first cell. She nearly jumped back into the wall as a scruffy female with catlike reflexes pounced at her. Landing on all fours, the scruffy creature was only inches from the bars when she started snarling.

  Perry steadied Janie, grabbing her shoulder. “What the hell is that?”

  The drawn-up face in the cage softened when she heard Perry’s voice.

  The limited light revealed a dirty face with pretty features and eyes as black as coal. She watched the two of them without moving.

  Janie moved to the next cell, which appeared to be empty, but she couldn’t be sure, as there were several old blankets on the cot in the far corner. She pulled out her lockpicks.

  “Careful,” cautioned Perry.

  The feline answered in a Transylvanian accent, “The cell is empty.”

  Janie turned to meet her eyes, gesturing toward the last cell with the flashlight.

  “The man in there is in bad shape. He hasn’t spoken in a day.”

  “How long has he been in there?”

  “Several days, but it is hard to tell how many. There are no windows, as you can see.”

  Janie walked over to the third cell. Gramps had only been missing for a little over a day. Couldn’t be him, and yet her heartbeat doubled as her mouth went dry. A man lay on the cot against the far wall. She smelled infection, wrinkling her nose. She took the picks out again and within seconds had the door unlocked and open. She walked over and peered at his face.

  “Christ, it’s Robert Lopez!”

  “Who’s that?” asked Perry.

  “Our fucking client who’s been missing for nearly a week.” She lifted the sheet off him. His pants were still on, but he’d probably been shot in the leg. The swollen wound threatened to burst open his dress slacks. She used the pen knife on the other side of her picks to cut the pants above the wound, pulling the lower part off his leg. “Man alive, that’s bad. If he doesn’t get to a hospital, he’ll be a goner. In fact, it may be too late as it is.” Lopez’s breathing sounded shallow, almost nonexistent.

  The caged female was eager to ask, “You know this man?”

  “If you’d been paying attention, you’d know. I do know this man.”

  “No need for sarcasm. Just trying to find out which side you’re on. Is it the Russians’?”

  “Hell no!” Janie blurted out.

  “Can you get me outta here?”

  “Are you with the Russians?”

  “If you’d been paying attention, you’d see I’m locked up by the Russians!”

  “Okay. I had that coming. Will you help us get out of here? Do I have your word?”

  The female looked calmer and nodded.

  Janie pulled the gun out of her pocket, took off the safety, and handed it to Perry. “If she makes one wrong move, you shoot her in the head.”

  Perry took the gun and nodded. His stern expression showed he would do just that.

  The caged female stood with a smile. Wearing nothing but a bikini bottom, her firm perky breasts were exposed as she rose. “You won’t need to shoot me.”

  When Janie opened her cell door, the prisoner stepped out calmly.

  Janie took off her own jacket and handed it to her. “Do you have a name?”

  “Susan.”

  “Okay, Susan, we’re going to get you out of here.” Turning to P
erry she said, “We can’t move that man without killing him. He needs an ambulance.” She pulled out her cell.

  Susan put her hand out as if to stop Janie. Perry pointed the gun at Susan’s head. “Nope, don’t do that. Back away.”

  Although Susan complied, her smirk held a challenge. She could avoid his best efforts to shoot her . . . if she wanted.

  Janie hit up Peter Robertson’s number.

  Peter picked up almost instantly. “Janie, what the hell? Where have you two been? I’ve been worried. Plus, I have some important information.”

  “Hang on, Pete. We found Lopez!”

  Silence.

  “Really?”

  “Yes, we did, locked in a dirty cell. Looks like the Russians shot him at the car dealership and took him back to Aversions to die.”

  “Aversions? I told you two to stay away from that place. The DA will have a fit. This is against the law. Is Jack with you?”

  “Sorta.”

  “What do you mean sorta? You do know Jack’s on his way to getting disbarred.”

  “Calm down, Pete. Jack figures the Russians killed Josh and now his grandfather’s missing. We’re trying to find his gramps before it’s too late.”

  Peter sighed, “Did you find Mr. Portman?”

  “No. Not yet, anyway.”

  “There isn’t going to be a ‘not yet.’ I’m calling the DA, even if it is late, and we’re going to get the police in on this. How is Lopez?”

  “Lopez is in bad shape, close to dying. I wouldn’t dare move him.”

  “Okay. How’d you get in there and find him in the cell?”

  “Perry and I sorta backed our way in; long story, and we’ll laugh about it later.”

  Peter’s voice rose. “Look, I want you to get out of there. Now. I’m calling the police and an ambulance. I need you outside, so you can direct them to Lopez. We’ll need to get a judge to grant a warrant ASAP. Won’t be easy and could take some time. For now, leave Lopez where he is.”

  “Okay, Pete, we’ll get out of here.”