by eXtasy Books
“Have you thought about being a game designer?”
“All the time. Oh, my God!” He’d stopped in his tracks and stared straight ahead.
I followed his gaze and almost threw up.
It was the two men who’d held us up the day before.
Chapter Four
Ferric and I stared at them.
They stared at us. They were still wearing the same clothing they had on the day before. They looked as surprised as we were, however, we were their victims. Ferric and I simultaneously let out frantic screams. We were still screaming as they turned and ran. One of them hopped into the air, clutching his ass. I was shocked as hell to see Ferric on one knee, Francois’ taser gun in his hand, the electrode protruding from it.
It had lodged in the attacker’s butt, the barb embedded in his pants.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” he screamed, flopping to the pier, wriggling like a fish out of water.
His companion kept running until Francois arrived, screaming, “Stop!”
The guy turned and Francois let him have it. The electrode from his taser went straight to the guy’s denim shirt. He screamed and danced around and flopped to the pier as well.
“Call the police,” Francois muttered to me, standing guard over the two men as people screamed and ran for cover.
I called 911 for the second time in two days and was surprised when a couple of uniformed officers turned up on bicycles.
My mom rushed over, looking panic-stricken. She was wearing a big, floppy hat with a price tag dangling over her eye.
“I’m a grandmother!” she shouted. “Where’s my baby?” She pushed past the throng gathered around us. Francois talked to the cops whilst Ferric and I stood back with Mom.
“Holy cat,” she suddenly said, “I forgot to pay for this hat. I’ll be right back.”
Ferric seemed to be in a state of shock.
“You okay?” I kept asking him, rubbing his hands between mine. His fingers were cold. Yep. He was in shock.
Francois removed the electrodes from the perps’ bodies.
“What happened?” he asked me. I told him quickly. Not that there was much to tell him.
A patrol car showed up and the officers went through the same questioning process.
“Did they say anything to you?” Francois asked.
“No. They seemed as surprised to see us as we were to see them.”
The cops took our details, then dragged the carjackers away. Francois looked murderous.
“What are they doing here?” I asked him. He shook his head. He might as well have said, later.
I held a stiff Ferric in my arms.
“Let’s go home.” Francois gazed at his son and took him from me, hugging his teenager. Ferric started to cry. I felt awful. He’d been so strong the day before. And he’d fritzed one of them.
“Where did he get the taser from?” I asked Francois who flashed me a guilty look.
“I gave him my extra one.”
“You did great,” I said to Ferric who buried his face in his father’s big chest. This must have been beyond frightening, running into these creeps again.
All I wanted to do was go home. And not to the big, fancy estate. I wanted to go home to Hawaii.
We walked slowly back toward the car, Francois keeping up a soothing patois of, “It’s okay, son, it’s okay, Ferric.”
“He needs something hot to drink,” I said.
My mom found us, her eyes turning red-rimmed as soon as she saw Ferric’s condition.
“He needs hot, sweet, tea,” she said, taking him away from his father. Ferric walked with her, looking over his shoulder at me.
“Dad?”
“Yes?” I said.
“Nothing. Just…I’m glad you’re my Dad.”
His face crumpled again.
Oh, man. Now I felt like shit.
Francois put his arm around me.
“Now you tell me something,” I said to him. “What are they doing here? Were they following us?”
He blew out a breath.
“I’m still waiting on the prints from Lars.”
“Did they know who we were yesterday?”
He glanced at me. “Yes, and no.”
“Oh, Francois, come on. Why so cryptic?”
“Because, my love, you’re not going to like what I have to tell you.”
“Which is?”
“They were sent to kill me.”
The last time I’d seen FBI agent Sage Brantley had been in a luxury resort hotel room back in Hawaii. We’d had some pretty delicious piggy sex with Francois. Twice. In fact, Sage, who’d explored his gay fantasies with us, lost his cherry to Francois our second time with him.
I wasn’t exactly unhappy to see him, but it sure didn’t feel good to see him under these circumstances.
He gave me a lascivious grin and I recalled that the last time I’d seen him he’d opened his door naked, letting me and Francois into his hotel room. Sage and I had pounced on each other as Francois poured champagne.
Nobody was celebrating now. Sage looked at our magnificent view and said, “Nice, very nice. This must have set you back a few shekels.”
I felt myself bristling. In bed, he was dynamite, out of the sheets, I always sensed Sage was jealous that Francois was loyal to me and that the two of us kept our romps with him far apart, never at our home and never for more than a couple of hours of hot sex. This was a decision that came before Ferric became part of our daily lives. Once he did, there was no question for either of us that Sage would be kept at arm’s length. I could tell it bugged him. Francois was a magnificent lover and Sage couldn’t get near him, in spite of his frequent calls to us, that had escalated after Francois finally fucked him.
He threw himself into a chair opposite the sofa where Francois and I sat close together.
“I’m a little angry with you guys. I keep trying to hook up with you…but you’re good at the call avoidance, until you need my help.” He stood up again, picking up knickknacks and putting them back down again.
Mom came out of the kitchen with Ferric, who came toward me with a magazine in his hand.
“Have you met our son?” Francois asked.
Sage blinked. I loved the our part. For me, it drew a line in the emotional sand between us and Sage. It also let him know that he needed to keep his conversation age-appropriate.
“No,” he said. “I had no idea…” He stood and shook Ferric’s hand. He had the same predatory gleam in his eye Benny Leonard had the first time he met Ferric.
“This is Special Agent, Sage Brantley,” Francois said. “Sage, this is our son, Ferric.”
Sage’s mind whirled, I could tell. He watched as Ferric came and sat next to me.
“Look, Dad.”
I saw Sage’s eyes bug out.
“This is the new Wii game I was telling you about.”
“The Disney one?” I asked.
“Yeah. See, it was made by Warren Spector, the game wizard. He’s my hero.”
“I thought I was your hero,” Francois deadpanned.
“You’re my other hero,” Ferric said and grinned.
Mom poured out the coffee and I read the brief blurb in the magazine about the Disney Epic Mickey game.
“Sweetheart,” I said, stroking Ferric’s dreads. “Why don’t you go online and see if we can preorder the game?”
“Can I?” he looked so happy my heart almost burst. “Are you sure?”
“Sure I’m sure. Use my laptop, sweetheart. It’s in our bedroom.”
He ran out of the room, running back to retrieve his magazine.
We waited until we were sure he was pleasantly distracted.
“Any idea who these guys were?” Francois asked Sage, leaning forward to grab his coffee from Mom.
I stole a glance at Francois. I thought Lars had been checking for fingerprints.
“Lars called me a few minutes ago,” Sage said. “These guys were on the lam. They’re two of the men w
ho broke out of Perry County Detention Center in Uniontown, Alabama last week.”
“Alabama,” I said. “How’d they wind up in Connecticut?”
Sage glanced at Francois, who put his hand on my thigh.
“I’m not keeping anything from Mingo, or his mother. They need to know what’s going on.”
“Does this have anything to do with the Mafioso guy you came to the Caribbean to help when you disappeared?” I asked Francois.
He nodded. “You got it in one, babe.”
“How much have you told him?” Sage asked and I wished I had one of Francois’ stun guns on me. I hated that Sage knew something about this that I didn’t.
“Somebody bumped off the guy I came to work with.”
It was all coming back to me now. He’d been a Mafiaso.
“Arturo Abramo, right?” I asked.
“Right. Good memory, babe. He changed it to Alan Arthur. I came and set up his security—”
“And I found you locked in the bunker in his backyard.”
“You saved my life, Mingo.”
Yeah, and I braved a hurricane and…oh, man, I’d forgotten how awful that whole trip had been, not knowing if Francois was alive or dead. I’d rescued them both, him and Abramo when the bunker’s battery accidentally locked them inside it. And now Abramo was dead.
“When was he bumped off?” I asked.
Sage picked up the story. “Three days ago.
“I called Francois and he said you were going to Connecticut for the wedding. I told him he might be in danger because certain people were upset that he helped Alberto Abramo create a new existence as Alan Arthur. “He did time for some violent crimes, but got a light sentence for rolling over on some of his goombahs.” Sage sipped at his coffee. “He’s been shopping around his memoirs to some big New York publishers. Somebody caught wind of it and found him in New York…and popped him full of lead. Every copy of his manuscript has disappeared.”
“So now they’re after Francois because he put a security system in the guy’s house down here in St. Martin?”
Francois sighed and looked away from me.
“We know who it is, we just…have to catch up with him. Somebody told him we were going to be in Connecticut.”
“Okay, I said, who is he?”
“Louie Fancetti,” Sage said.
“Is that name supposed to ring a bell?”
“I helped put him away,” Francois said. “He’s a pretty heavy-duty guy. Been out for about a month, right, Sage?”
“Right. He recruited someone in Hawaii to keep track of you. His people found the two goons who came after you yesterday. They blabbed as soon as they got to the police station. They followed you down here, but lost you at the airport.”
I felt sick. They’d followed us here?
“Mingo, I created the voice-activated travel coffee mug Alberto Abramo used to tape all his conversations with Fancetti. It was the backbone of the state’s case in New York.”
“A voice-activated coffee tumbler?” Now I’d heard everything.
“Mingo, babe…it was before I met you.” He let out another sigh. “I helped Alberto out because he offered me a lot of money and until I met you, I never thought twice about taking dangerous assignments. I’d accepted that job before we moved in together. I didn’t think for a second it would be high risk, or that I might die.”
“Ferric and I are your liabilities,” I said.
He frowned at me. “Liabilities? You are my life. Both of you. Right now, this is a part of my past that needs to be tidied up.”
“How do we do that?” I asked.
“Thank God you said we.”
“Oh, Francois, I love you. But what do we do? We can’t have a bunch of goons following us everywhere.”
“Somebody gave Fancetti that information and that somebody must still be in touch with him,” Sage said.
Francois got up and paced now.
“I still can’t get over that these two guys went from Alabama to Connecticut and now down to here…and they are jail escapees,” I said. “How is that possible?”
Sage rubbed his fingers together in the universal gesture of money.
“So Fancetti pays the goons, gets them fake IDs…they wind up here—” I said. “So, they what…kill Francois and then what?”
Sage shrugged. “They were told they’d be free. Hey, it wasn’t a completely stupid plan. They could have disappeared down here. I think they’re kinda sore they got taken down by a thirteen year old.” He grinned.
“And his handsome father,” I reminded him.
Sage nodded in acknowledgment.
“Who knew we were going to be at the wedding and hated us enough to pass on the information?” Francois asked.
I felt the knowledge crawl across my mind like someone walking on my grave. Francois stopped and stared at me. He knew, too.
“Shit,” I said. “I think I know.”
“I know,” Ferric said from the doorway. I had no idea how much he’d heard, but he crossed the room to me. “It’s that guy, Dad. I knew he was fallowing us.”
“What guy?” Sage asked.
“Kaolin Grace,” I said.
Ferric’s earlier fear was gone. He had that pissed-off expression his father wore so well. I preferred to see him angry than frightened.
“I remember where I saw him now. It was at William-Sonoma.”
“Wait…you and I went together and used the bridal registry. Maybe we didn’t close out the screen and he could see which wedding we were shopping for,” I said.
“I’ll fucking kill him,” Francois said.
“Not if I kill him first,” I responded.
“Nobody is killing him,” Sage said. “Look, tell me what you know about this guy and where we can find him.”
“He’s probably here,” I said. “He missed the flight we were on because Francois had him yanked off to be strip searched.”
“I should have had him fisted,” Francois muttered.
Sage stared at me. “He was on your flight to St. Martin?”
“Yeah, we saw him at the airport,” Ferric said. “I recognized him from back home.”
“Where do you suppose he is?” I asked.
“He could be anywhere.” Francois resumed his pacing.
“I can check with the airline,” Sage said.
“You still have his phone number, Mingo?” Mom asked.
I felt Francois’ head whip around in my direction.
“No, Mom. And I don’t remember it.”
“Well, I’ll just call his mother,” Mom said. “I’m still in touch with her. I bet she has no idea what he’s been up to. I’ll just tell her we saw him and want to say hi.” She gave me a loopy smile. “She always had a soft spot for you, Mingo.”
We waited until she’d gone to her room to make the call.
“I can’t believe it.” I shook my head. “I knew Kaolin was bad, but he’s evil.”
Mom returned. “I just spoke to Lina Grace and she said Kaolin is staying at the La Samanna resort in St. Martin.”
“La Samanna?” Sage whistled. “Somebody’s got beaucoup bucks. I’ll have him picked up right away.”
An hour later I was sitting opposite Kaolin at La Cave bar at the swanky La Samanna resort. He’d been spotted by Sage’s partners who kept an eye on Kaolin as he propped up the bar with some heavy doses of the resort’s private label rum.
It had taken some persuasion for Francois to allow me to go and talk to the guy. Both Mom and I felt it was the best way for us to find out if he was the real connection to Fancetti or if he was an innocent man.
“Hey, Mingo,” Kaolin said. “Fancy seeing you here.”
He looked heavy-lidded and slurred his words. He must have been drinking for a while. The Kaolin I knew could hold his liquor pretty well.
“Wanna drink?” he asked me.
“Sure.” I was wired. Literally and figuratively. My tropical cocktail arrived and was so strong I almost fell over w
ith my first sip. It burned my tongue and tingled my lips. I wasn’t much of a rum guy, unless you counted Mai Tais. This one, I realized was straight up island rum splashed over ice.
“It’s good to see you, Mingo.” His hand fell on mine. There was a time when I craved his touch. Now he made my skin crawl. I was pretty certain he was behind the attack on me and Ferric and I wanted to know why.
I let him ramble on for a few minutes about how screwed up life was and how hard it was to be a good man.
Listening to people was part of my job. I felt I had kind of come full circle with Kaolin. He’d come to ask me for help in my old office on McCully, back in Waikiki. Now, I was coming to him for help.
Why? Why had he tried to hurt me when I was nothing but good to him?
He whined about his frame-up and how it fucked him up in the head.
“Why’d you do it?” I blurted, and I could picture my lover and Sage in the manager’s office not too far from us, slapping their heads in frustration. They wanted me to take my time. Mom and Ferric had protection at the Dawn Beach house, but I didn’t want to be here. I wanted to get back to my life. I wanted to be home with them. Home. Back in Hawaii.
He pretended not to know what I was talking about, but didn’t feign innocence for long.
“Money,” he said. “Isn’t it always about money, Mingo?”
“I thought you had plenty.”
For a moment, the details flooded my mind. His aunt had left him a box filled with thousand-dollar bills. He’d never told anybody exactly how much money was in the box, but the old lady had never held a bank account and kept every dollar she ever earned, living like a pauper above her King Street lei store in Honolulu.
“Blew through it all. I lost you and I lost my mind. I…” he shook his head.
I didn’t see how our breakup was related. “You cheated on me…again,” I reminded me.
He looked abashed. “I know, honey. I can’t keep my dick in my pants. Even when I really want to.”
Kaolin signaled the bartender for another drink. The guy hesitated, but caught my slight nod. He complied.
It galled me to think how long it took Kaolin’s aunt to save that money, converting everything to thousand dollar bills…and how fast her favorite nephew had blown through it all.