He didn’t, of course, because there were probably rules against that here.
But he did slip his hand down to her ass every now and then. She linked her arm through his, nestled in, and said, “This place gets me horny.”
“Good, that’s all part of my evil plan.”
People stared at Venzelle as they passed, and not just the men, transfixed by her face, her body, her movement.
Most of the guys threw Teffinger a darting glance, to see who was with this beauty, and to gauge whether they could replace him if given a chance. Teffinger detected a few challenges, but not many.
HE SPOTTED A NO COVER SIGN and said, “There’s my name.” They went in. The place was big, dark and crowded. On stage was a young woman who looked and sounded a lot like Amy Winehouse. Teffinger immediately fell in love with her voice and her face.
He drank Bud Light.
Venzelle drank wine.
A half hour later, Teffinger collided with a man as he pushed through the door of the men’s room. The guy was strong and bigger than him. He wore a blue bandanna.
“Sorry,” Teffinger said.
“No problem.”
When Teffinger came back out, he looked around for the guy. For some reason he seemed familiar, as if Teffinger had seen him before or maybe even knew him. The guy was gone, or at least not obvious if he was still here.
An hour later, he took Venzelle to their hotel—the Cajun Blue—cranked the AC all the way up, and took his time with her.
She came twice and screamed louder the second time.
HOURS LATER, HE WOKE UP.
It was the middle of the night.
The room was dark.
Venzelle was next to him, lying naked on top of the covers, breathing deeply. A soft light wove through the window and accented the curves of her body.
Teffinger turned onto his back.
And closed his eyes.
He pulled up an image of the guy from the restroom. He pictured the guy without a bandanna. For some reason, he envisioned a scar on the guy’s forehead. When he did, the man looked a lot like the one who had been stalking Lindsay Vail.
The man no one from Denver had called about yet.
The one who was probably from out of town.
The pirate.
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Day Three—July 14
Wednesday Night
______________
COYOTE WAS STILL ON THE SEARAY when twilight settled over the marina. The heat of the day evaporated into the thin Rocky Mountain air and left a perfect temperature in its wake. Jimmy Buffet’s “Cheeseburger in Paradise” drifted over from a boat called Legal Add Vice on B-Dock.
Raven was nervous.
She hadn’t bought any wine today, convinced that there would be no temptation to visit Coyote tonight. Now, as darkness approached, she wasn’t so confident.
She headed over to the beach and walked on the water’s edge in bare feet. A sandpiper scooted ahead of her on pretzel-thin legs. With most of the boaters gone, the lake hardly moved. A few miles to the west, the Colorado plains rose into the foothills, which cut a jagged swash of purple along the horizon. If Raven didn’t go over to visit Coyote tonight, the woman would probably leave in the morning.
What to do?
She spotted a flat rock and skipped it.
Six hops.
Not bad.
Clouds hung over the mountains, meaning there would be a sunset tonight.
Suddenly her cell phone rang and Coyote’s voice came through. “Just because we’re even doesn’t mean you can’t come over.”
Raven stopped.
The sand was squishy.
She wiggled her toes.
“I’m actually thinking about it,” she said.
“Well stop thinking about it and just do it.”
ON THE WALK BACK TO THE MARINA, Raven’s phone rang again. She thought it was Coyote, telling her to hurry up. But it wasn’t. It was someone she didn’t know.
A woman.
“Cotter down at the Ink Spot told me to call you,” she said.
Cotter—wife-beater shirt, beer gut.
Ink Spot.
This must have something to do with the guy she was trying to find—Mr. Scar-On-The-Forehead.
The pirate.
“My name’s Dawn Hooker,” the woman said. “Cotter has a picture of a guy up on his wall. I was in there today and recognized him.”
“You did? Do you know him?”
“Sort of,” she said. “I used to work in a tattoo shop called Body Art, down on Santa Fe. I gave the guy a tattoo there about five years ago.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“Do you remember his name?”
“No. I’ve been trying to think of it, but I just can’t remember.”
“Do you think someone else at the place would?”
“It closed down, I don’t know, three years ago, maybe.”
“It did?”
“The owner robbed a bank,” Dawn said.
“Oh.”
“He didn’t do a very good job.”
“Understood,” Raven said. “Would you remember the guy’s name if you heard it again?”
She paused.
“I don’t know. Maybe—”
“I have a list of names I’d like you to take a look at,” Raven said. “Would you be willing to do that?”
“Sure. No problem. By the way, the tattoo that this guy wanted—it was really sick. That’s why I remember him.”
“Sick how? What was it?”
The woman told her and Raven’s forehead tightened. “Did you take a picture of it?”
“Yeah, but that stayed at the shop. It’s gone.”
“Could you sketch it for me?”
Yes.
She could.
It wouldn’t be perfect.
But Raven would get the general idea.
“I’ll do that tonight,” Dawn said.
“You’re an angel.”
The woman chuckled.
“I’ve been called a lot of things, but that’s never been one of ’em.”
They made arrangements to meet in the morning and then hung up.
COYOTE WORE A SHORT, WHITE, BUTTON-DOWN DRESS that hugged her body.
Very sexy.
As soon as Raven stepped on board, Coyote gave her a quick kiss on the lips. “I’m still officially on duty,” she said. “So don’t tell me anything you don’t want me to know.”
“Is this legal?” Raven asked. “Getting your target drunk?”
“Probably not, so don’t tell anyone.”
They drank screwdrivers.
Coyote loosened more and more of her buttons as the night got darker. A white thong started to peek through with more and more regularity.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Day Four—July 15
Thursday Morning
______________
DALTON DIDN’T GET UP TO LEAVE THE PARTY until three in the morning. Just as he did, a buxom brunette with hypnotic brown eyes came up and said, “Isn’t it exciting?”
“What?”
She ran a finger down his chest.
“What I’m going to let you do to me.”
They took a limo to his LoDo loft, screwed for an hour and passed out. Ordinarily after a night like that, he would sleep for ten or twelve hours. But the phone call from last night still nagged him. He got up at ten, showered, walked to work, poured a cup of coffee and headed straight for Mandy Martin’s office. She wore an expensive white dress with black open-toed shoes.
Her lips were soft rouge.
Her fingernails and toenails were hot pink and flawless.
“How’d the party go?” she asked.
“No one got arrested and no one died,” Dalton said.
She grinned.
“That’s more than I hoped for.”
“Did you ever hear of that Roman guy called Caligula, who was famous for throwing wild sex parties?”<
br />
She nodded.
“It was something like that?”
“Let’s put it this way—he could have picked up a few pointers,” Dalton said.
“Sorry I missed it.”
Dalton sipped coffee.
“So what’s the news on G-Drop?” he asked.
Mandy shrugged.
“As far as I know, he still hasn’t surfaced. Apparently his buddy’s AWOL too. What’s his name?”
“Malcolm Smith.”
Right.
Him.
Weird.
“Thanks for getting the other acts to fill in the void,” she said. “It still amazes me how you can always pull things together.”
“Aw, shucks, Miss Mandy—”
She chuckled.
“I never talked money with them,” Dalton said. “Maybe in appreciation, we can pick up the tab for the party.”
She cocked her head.
“What’s the damage?”
Dalton ran the math in his head.
“I don’t know how many of the escorts ended up getting screwed,” he said. “My guess is, all of ’em. We’re probably looking at twenty grand or so, right there. That’ll push the total to forty or thereabouts.”
“I don’t mind picking that up, if no one presses for an addition to their base contract,” she said. “Make the offer today and see what they say. Think they’ll go for it?”
After that party?
He did.
He did indeed.
HE WENT TO HIS OFFICE AND STARED DOWN at the city while he sorted things out. The big wildcard in his life was Lindsay Vail. Dalton needed to find out where Malcolm stashed her before someone found her and she ended up talking to the cops.
He shut the office door and called G-Drop’s manager, Alan Raspen.
Raspen was fifty, white, and looked like a longhaired rocker, past his prime, now busy getting bald, pudgy and cynical.
“You heard anything yet?” Dalton asked.
Negative.
“I didn’t share this with you before, but it’s nut-cutting time,” Dalton said. “Did you know that G-Drop is into S&M?”
Raspen hesitated.
Then he said, “I thought he might be.”
“He wanted me to set him up with a submissive here in Denver,” Dalton said. “That’s why he came to town a day early. I set him up, like he wanted. I’m thinking that what happened is that he got all jacked up on drugs and ended up killing the woman. The reason I say that is, I haven’t heard from her and neither has anyone else. I’m thinking that G-Drop and Malcolm are laying low and trying to cover their tracks.”
“You think?”
“It’s the only thing that makes sense,” Dalton said. “What I’m going to say next needs to stay with you and not go anywhere else. Is that fair?”
It was.
Absolutely.
“Between you and me,” Dalton said, “if they did what I think they did, they’re not going to be smart enough to cover their tracks. They need help. If they don’t get it, they’ll both end up on death row.”
Dalton paused.
And let the words hang.
He didn’t need to state the obvious, which was the fact that Raspen wouldn’t be getting a steady stream of checks in the mail if his money cow was in jail.
“What do you propose?”
“I’m willing to help them out,” Dalton said.
“Why?”
“Because they’re going to be grateful as hell and reward me like you can’t even believe,” Dalton said. “The first thing I need to do is find them. Where was Malcolm staying?”
Raspen didn’t know.
“What I need you to do is talk to your contacts or whatever and figure it out. I’m pretty sure it was someplace secluded, rather than a hotel or something; maybe a house rental or something. My guess is that they’re still there, probably trying to clean the place up. And if they’re not, at least I’ll have a place to start tracking them from.”
A pause.
“I’ll get right on it,” Raspen said.
“That would be sweet. Time’s ticking.”
“I know.”
“Remember, this stays between you and me.”
“Absolutely,” Raspen said. “I have a lot more riding on it than you do.”
True.
“Have the cops called you?” Dalton asked.
“No,” Raspen said. “I don’t think anyone’s opened a file yet. As far as I know, the only thing going on so far is that every reporter in the world is snooping around.”
“Be careful what you say to them.”
“They won’t get anything, don’t worry.”
DALTON HUNG UP AND SPRINKLED SHRIMP into the aquarium. If this actually worked—and Raspen was able to find out where Malcolm was staying—Dalton might have to plug the leak later.
Meaning Raspen.
Time would tell.
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Day Four—July 15
Thursday Morning
______________
TEFFINGER WOKE BEFORE SUNRISE and jogged through humid New Orleans streets. He passed a mom-and-pop restaurant with the lights on and swung over to the window to have a look. An hour later, he brought Venzelle there for pancakes smothered under more strawberries and whipped cream than the law allowed. The waitress—a 60-year-old black woman—figured out his coffee addiction after the third refill and didn’t let the cup get empty again.
He tipped her $20.00 and told her he was going to come back and marry her someday.
She chuckled and said, “You wish.”
Then they headed to the New Orleans Police Department and—after a lot of explaining to the gatekeepers—ended up in the office of a homicide detective by the name of Max Moniteau.
Teffinger liked the man from moment-one.
He was about fifty, white, five-feet-eight, bald on top, gray on the sides and 150 pounds soaking wet. Suspenders held up brown pants. His shirt was crispy white and long-sleeved, in spite of the impending heat. He had a gold tooth, a Timex watch and a simple wedding band.
Teffinger shook his hand.
And found the man’s grip a lot tighter than he expected.
He showed the man the voodoo dolls and the newspaper article of Teffinger that was found with one of the dolls. He explained that there had been two recent attempts on his life.
One by bullet.
One by rattlesnake.
He told Moniteau what he knew about the black woman who escaped when Teffinger got hit in the head with a rock. He told him about their plan to have the black woman follow him here and then figure out her name from the airline manifests.
Moniteau listened patiently and tapped his fingers on a book called Bangkok Laws.
When Teffinger finally stopped talking, the man put a solemn expression on his face and said, “You’re out of your league down here. You’ll be dead within 24 hours. My advice is to get back to Denver while you still can.”
“WHY DO YOU SAY THAT?”
“Well, let’s suppose you’re right,” he said. “Let’s suppose there’s a voodoo priestess, and he or she—let’s just say it’s a she—lives in New Orleans, and let’s suppose that she put a death curse on you at someone’s request.”
“Ryan Ripley’s,” Teffinger said.
Moniteau shook his head.
“The name isn’t important,” he said. “What’s important is that you now show up in New Orleans very much alive. That’s a slap in the face; a total slap in the face. How do you think she’s going to react to that?”
“I don’t really care.”
“Well you should,” Moniteau said, “because she has a reputation to maintain. And in that line of work, reputation is everything.” The man sipped coffee and looked Teffinger directly in the eyes. “My advice to you is to slip out of the city as soon as you walk out the front door. You don’t necessarily have to go back to Denver. Go wherever you want. Maybe you’ll still get your manifests without putting y
our neck on the block.”
“So does that mean you’re not going to help me?”
The man stood up.
“I just did,” he said.
Teffinger set his coffee cup on the detective’s desk and headed for the door.
Venzelle fell into step.
“Thanks for seeing us,” Teffinger said.
“No problem. Good luck to you. Don’t turn yourself into my next case.”
OUTSIDE, HE TOLD VENZELLE, “I can’t believe I actually liked that guy at first.”
She frowned.
“Maybe we should just do what he said.”
“He’s an idiot. We’re going to Plan B.”
“What’s Plan B?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I didn’t even know we needed a Plan B until just now.”
Chapter Sixty
Day Four—July 15
Thursday Morning
______________
DAWN HOOKER LIVED ON A 5-ACRE horse property off Highway 93 between Golden and Boulder. Raven maneuvered the 4Runner down a long gravel driveway, parked behind three Harleys and killed the engine. A black lab sniffed her briefly when she stepped out, and then escorted her to the front door of a modest house that looked to be fifty years old.
The air was quiet.
She knocked.
No answer.
She was about to rap again when the door opened and a woman appeared; barefoot, wearing jeans, a black T and a sleepy pre-coffee face.
Very attractive.
About thirty.
With long chestnut hair.
The cowgirl next door.
She stepped outside, closed the door and said, “The guys are still sleeping. They’re not exactly what you call morning people.”
Raven chuckled and wanted to ask who the guys were, but didn’t want to get nosy. “Thanks for meeting with me,” she said.
Not a problem.
“You want coffee?”
“I’d kill for coffee right now,” Raven said.
“Come on in, just be quiet.”
They headed inside.
THE HOUSE WAS SMALL, neat and girly. Dawn noticed one of the bedroom doors open, tiptoed over and peeked inside. Then she said, “They must be sleeping in the barn. We can talk.”
Client Trap (Nick Teffinger Thriller) Page 15