Client Trap (Nick Teffinger Thriller)
Page 22
TEFFINGER ALMOST HUNG UP.
“Hey? You still there?”
She was.
“Do me a favor,” he said. “Venzelle has three or four credit cards, but the only one we have the account number on is the one she used for the hotel and the car rental last night. Go to my house. The key to the front door is taped under the electrical panel on the east side of the house. There’s a box of papers that Venzelle set in the spare bedroom. I’m pretty sure there are bank statements and financial stuff in there. See if you can find out what other credit cards she had and then get in touch with those companies too. If any of them are used, I want to know about it immediately.”
“What do you want me to do first? That or run down Kristen Starkell’s background?”
“That.”
“Okay. I’m on my way.”
“Don’t look under my mattress,” Teffinger said.
“Why not?”
“Just don’t do it.”
AN HOUR LATER, Sydney called back, very excited. “I found something I didn’t expect,” she said.
“Like what?”
“Venzelle has five other credit cards in addition to the one we knew about,” she said. “Someone made the rounds at several banks in New Orleans yesterday afternoon, drawing cash against them. Guess how much—”
He didn’t know.
“Fifty thousand dollars, total.”
“You’re kidding.”
She wasn’t.
“Did someone steal them?”
“I haven’t had a chance to run that down,” she said. “But I’m assuming she was the one who got the money. All the cash came over the counter as opposed to ATMs. Banks would want some type of identification before handing over that much green.”
True.
“So what the hell’s going on?”
“I don’t know,” Sydney said. “But something, that’s for sure. Hey, I looked under your mattress. There was nothing there.”
He chuckled.
“Got you,” he said.
“Yes I did. I suppose you’re all proud of yourself.”
“Yes I am.”
Chapter Eighty-Seven
Day Five—July 16
Friday Afternoon
______________
THE BLOWJOB ALLEY was up Colfax, a few blocks north of Capitol Hill, less than a twenty-minute walk. Instead of heading back to the library after lunch, Raven walked up Broadway and turned north on Colfax, drawn to the alley.
It always surprised her how edgy the city felt just a few blocks off the beaten path.
This time was no different.
A storefront jammed with comic books and posters attracted her eye across the street. It looked like something straight out of the sixties.
She picked her way through traffic and went over to see if the inside was as cluttered as she pictured.
It was, even more so.
It didn’t look like the owners had thrown anything away in twenty years. The aisles were jammed with an eclectic mix of old vinyl albums, cassettes, posters, pot paraphernalia, tie-dye shirts, beads and you-name-it.
The guy behind the counter was stuck in the sixties, right down to the bandanna, long hair and Doors T-shirt. An old Turtles song—“So Happy Together”—came from the speakers. Incense wove through the air.
“Hey there,” the man said.
“Hey there back,” Raven said. “I have a weird question for you. Do you have any phonebooks that go back a year or two or three that you haven’t thrown away?”
The man smiled.
Flashing neglected teeth.
“I got better than that.”
HE DISAPPEARED INTO THE BACK ROOM, returned with an old phone book and set it on the counter. “This is an original—repeat original—phone book from San Francisco, 1964. It has Gracie Slick’s phone number in it.” To prove it, he flipped to a page marked with a yellow Post-It and pointed.
Sure enough.
Gracie Slick.
He beamed.
“I’m impressed,” Raven said. “Is the number still good?”
The man chuckled.
“You’d be surprised how many people ask that exact same thing,” he said.
“I was joking,” Raven said.
“Oh.”
“That’s cool, but what I really need is something just a year or two old, from Denver. I’m trying to track down an old friend.”
“Hold on.”
He took Gracie Slick back into the rear room and then returned with a battered White Pages, three years old.
“Try this.”
She tried it and actually found what she hoped to find, namely an address and phone number for Andrea Copperstone, the woman with the neck tattoo who mysteriously disappeared eleven months ago. She wrote the information down, slid a $5.00 bill across the counter and said, “Thanks. You have a nice store. I’ll come back someday when I have time to look around.”
“Right on.”
“And far out.”
OUTSIDE, SHE ALMOST CONTINUED HER JOURNEY to the blowjob alley, but instead turned around and trotted to her car parked by the library on Bannock. She headed west on the 6th Avenue freeway and punched the radio buttons as she drove, actually getting a few good songs.
Van Halen’s “Panama.”
Springsteen’s “Born to Run.”
Meatloaf’s “I Won’t Do That.”
Madonna’s “Burning Up.”
She exited at Wadsworth, drove for four blocks and wound east into a modest, older neighborhood of single, detached houses nestled in mature cottonwoods, maples and ponderosas. Andrea Copperstone’s address turned out to be a humble wooden bungalow in need of a paint job, on a good-sized chunk of shady land. Raven parked in the street, walked up the gravel driveway and rang the bell.
No one answered.
Walking back to her car, she looked around for signs of life and found some. Across the street two houses down, a woman was watering the grass with a hose.
Raven put on her friendliest face and headed over.
ON THE WAY, SHE LOOKED OVER HER SHOULDER and couldn’t believe what she saw.
Coyote.
Sitting in her car.
Fifty yards down the street.
Watching her.
Chapter Eighty-Eight
Day Five—July 16
Friday Afternoon
______________
WHEN DALTON GOT BACK to the French Quarter after dropping the pirate off at the bus station, James Madden wasn’t there, but someone else was—an incredibly attractive black woman, sitting on the couch. She watched him with deep, brown predator eyes as he walked in. He immediately got the feeling that she could have killed him twice before he even knew she was there.
She walked over and shook his hand.
“We finally meet,” she said.
“So who am I meeting, exactly?”
She ran a finger down his chest. “Let me ask you a question,” she said. “If you were stranded on an island, and you could have any woman in the world stranded there with you, who would it be?”
“Living or dead?”
“Either.”
“Marilyn Monroe, I guess, assuming she lived up to the hype when I actually saw her in the flesh.”
“Then Marilyn Monroe it is,” she said. “That’s what you call me until our project is over. After that, I don’t exist any more.”
“So mysterious,” Dalton said.
“It’s safer for everyone that way,” she said. “Better yet, call me Norma Jean. I like that better than Marilyn.”
Dalton did too.
“That’s fine, but on one condition,” Dalton said.
“Which is—?”
“When the project’s over, you spend a night with me on that island.”
SHE TURNED, walked towards the couch and said over her shoulder, “I don’t do white men.” Then she sat down, looked at him and added, “But in your case I’m going to make an exception. So you have a deal. Now, let
me tell you about my plan to kill Teffinger.”
“A full night,” Dalton said.
She nodded.
“Of course.”
“And my rules,” Dalton added.
She chuckled.
“You drive a hard bargain.”
“Yes I do.”
“I’ll tell you what,” she said. “If you want rules, that’s fine, but we’re going to split them. Half the night yours, and half the night mine.”
Dalton smiled.
“This is going to be fun,” he said. “Now tell me how we kill Teffinger.”
Chapter Eighty-Nine
Day Five—July 16
Friday Afternoon
______________
SHORTLY AFTER NOON, a fierce wind kicked up and serious black clouds rolled in. Teffinger had never been in a hurricane, but this felt like the leading edge of one. He called Venzelle’s cell phone repeatedly, but each time the power was off, meaning he couldn’t trace the location.
He didn’t have much to go on but he did know one thing, namely, Kristen Starkell—the black woman who tried to kill him in Denver—had to be working with at least one other person in New Orleans.
That’s because she wasn’t in town yesterday when Teffinger’s car got forced into a death roll and Venzelle disappeared.
The best way to find Venzelle was to find Kristen Starkell and let her lead the way. And the best way to find Kristen Starkell was for Teffinger to turn himself into a more visible target and draw her in.
That wasn’t going to happen in the middle of downtown, so he got in his car and drove to where the people were fewer and where someone tailing him might actually become detectible.
The wind shook the car.
He drove with the radio off and kept one eye in the rearview mirror.
Then his cell phone rang.
HE ANSWERED IMMEDIATELY, hoping it was Maggie Bender with news of a BOLO hit on Venzelle’s car. Instead, Sydney’s voice came through. “Tell me her credit card was used,” Teffinger said.
No.
That wasn’t why she called.
“Do you know about Venzelle’s sister?” Sydney asked.
“Her sister?”
“Right.”
“I didn’t even know she has a sister,” Teffinger said.
“She never mentioned it?”
“No, why?”
“Well, when I was going through that box at your house, there was a clipped newspaper article that caught my eye. It was about a 30-year-old woman named Zandra Oceana, from Boston. Apparently she was found dead in her house. The police were treating it as a homicide.”
“Well that’s weird,” Teffinger said.
“It really didn’t mean much to me at first,” Sydney said. “But then I got to thinking that maybe all these murder attempts aren’t directed at you at all. Maybe they’re all aimed at Venzelle. Maybe she and her sister got on someone’s wrong side. The sister got killed. Now it’s Venzelle’s turn.”
Teffinger chewed on it.
To some extent, it made sense.
The shot through the Corvette window could have been aimed at Venzelle. The rattlesnake could have bitten her as easily as him. Venzelle was in the car yesterday when someone ran them off the road. And maybe the black woman followed Venzelle to New Orleans, not Teffinger.
But, on the other hand, Teffinger spotted the black woman on the beach at Chatfield.
Venzelle wasn’t around then.
Same thing for when she tailed him down by the South Platte and he almost caught her before the drifter beamed him in the back of the head with a rock.
So, Sydney’s theory made some sense, but not enough to get diverted.
“Okay, do this—call Boston and find out what happened, but only after you run out of other things to do.”
A BLUE MID-SIZED CAR APPEARED in his rearview mirror. He wasn’t sure, but thought it might have been there ten minutes ago too.
He told Sydney, “I have to run.”
An asphalt road appeared on his right.
He took it.
Trees twitched violently in the wind. He tightened his hands on the steering wheel and kept his eyes on the mirror.
Come on. Kill me.
Chapter Ninety
Day Five—July 16
Friday Afternoon
______________
AFTER TALKING TO ANDREA COPPERSTONE’S grass-watering neighbor, Raven got in the 4Runner, did a U-turn, and waved at Coyote as she blasted past. She made a number of quick random turns. Three minutes later Coyote called and said, “You lost me.”
“Good. That’s what I was trying to do.”
“Why? Where are you going?”
“That’s none of your business,” Raven said. “Why are you following me, anyway?”
“It’s my job. Remember?”
“I’ll be back at the marina later,” she said. “Stalk me there.”
“You’re such an uncooperative stalkee.”
“So sue me.”
She hung up, took I-70 east, exited at Pecos and headed north. Ten minutes later she passed three strip clubs and pulled into a white standalone building with PHYSICAL GRAFFITI TATTOO in neon.
Inside, an attractive-in-a-scary-way man ran his eyes over her, from top to bottom, and introduced himself.
“I’m Big Rick.”
“Little Raven,” she said. “Andrea Copperstone used to work here, right?”
She already knew the answer was yes.
Andrea’s neighbor, the grass-waterer, had been very clear on where Andrea worked before she disappeared eleven months ago.
Big Rick leaned back.
“You know Andrea?”
“No.” She showed him a picture of the pirate. “Does this guy look familiar?”
He studied it.
“Robert,” he said.
“You know him?”
He shook his head. “Negative,” he said. “He only came in here once and that was—God, I don’t know—four or five years ago, maybe. The reason I remember him is because of the tattoo he got.”
“Why? What was it?”
“It was a woman getting shot in the back of the head with a revolver at point-blank range,” he said. “The bullet was just coming out of her forehead. Blood and skull and brains were splattering forward.”
She read nineteen potential last names.
He didn’t recognize any of them.
“Did Andrea give him the tattoo?” she asked.
Big Rick nodded.
“She did,” he said. “How do you know?”
Raven exhaled.
“I’m a lawyer, researching a case for a client,” she said. “From what I can tell, Robert got several tattoos four or five years ago. In each case, he got it from an attractive female—probably someone he picked in advance. In each case, it was a tattoo of a woman being killed. Now, if my theory is right, he’s killing the women who gave him the tattoos in the same way depicted in the tattoos they gave.”
The man didn’t blink or move a muscle.
Then his jaw tightened and his eyes narrowed.
“Are you saying this guy shot Andrea in the back of the head?”
Raven nodded.
“That’s my belief.”
Big Rick studied Raven’s face to see if she was messing with him.
Then he slammed his fist on the counter, so hard that a picture fell off the wall.
Glass shattered.
He didn’t look over.
Instead he looked Raven directly in the eyes and said, “He’s a dead man.”
Chapter Ninety-One
Day Five—July 16
Friday Afternoon
______________
THE WIND HOWLED and pushed eerie black clouds violently across the sky. Dalton was nestled in an enclave down by the Mississippi, watching the wind whip the water into whitecaps, when his phone rang and the voice of Norma Jean came through.
“We just got some very interesting news,” she said.
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“Like what?”
“It’s about Teffinger’s girlfriend,” she said. “The word is that she tried to reverse the death curse on Teffinger.”
“How?”
“By buying it off,” she said.
“So what happened?”
“She went to the wrong place—that was last night. Then things didn’t go well for her,” she said. “Where are you?”
He told her.
“Get back here,” she said. “We’re going to Plan B.”
“I like Plan A,” Dalton said.
“Trust me, Plan B is way better.”
TEFFINGER, IT TURNED OUT, was staying in Room 118 at the Cajun Blue Hotel, a cheap one-story structure at the edge of the city, where the parking lot came right up to the rooms. Dalton and his accomplice—Norma Jean—didn’t care about Teffinger’s room though. Instead, they backed into the parking space in front of Room 120 and killed the engine.
They looked around, saw no one and got out.
Dalton rapped on a blue wooden door.
No one answered.
He tried the knob.
It was locked.
They headed around to the rear of the building through a maddening wind, broke the bathroom window, and crawled in. Dalton knew what to expect, but the sight still caught him by surprise.
Teffinger’s girlfriend—Venzelle—was tightly tied spread-eagle to the bed, naked except for a black thong and gagged with a knotted rope.
On the floor was a dead rooster. The head had been cut off and the blood had been drained into a green plastic bowl that sat on a nightstand. The feet had also been cut off. Someone had dipped the feet into the blood and marked the woman’s stomach with some type of symbols.
“What do these mean?” Dalton asked.
Norma said, “They’re a curse.”
VENZELLE PLEADED WITH THEM through wide fearful eyes and tugged at her bonds. Muffled words came from the gag, too vague and jumbled to understand. Norma Jean sat down on the side of the bed and traced a fingertip on the blood symbols.
“You’re cursed,” she said. “Too bad, you’re so beautiful.”
She looked at Dalton and said, “Get me a wet washcloth. I’m going to clean her up.”