Sonellio stared at me as if my head had just spun three hundred sixty degrees. "Alright, spill it, why the change of heart?"
"How can I pass up an opportunity like this?" I stood. "I'm going home to pack."
Sonellio jumped to his feet. "I know you, Chalice. Something's going on. Explain yourself."
"I did. I'm going home to pack. I'll call Lido and let him know we just hit the lottery."
Sonellio had his top drawer open, clutching for the bottle of Pepto. "Ah shit, Chalice, don't screw this up for me. The mayor thinks I walk on water. All you have to do is fly to Europe and lay low for a week. Promise that's what you'll do. The important thing is that Manny has been recovered. The rest of it will wait until you comeback."
"Promise."
Sonellio loosened his tie and swigged a mouthful of the pink stuff. "I swear to Christ, Chalice, if you—"
"Scouts honor." I pulled my hand from behind my back and presented the Girl Scout salute.
"Have a good trip," he grumbled. "There'll still be homicides to investigate when you get back."
"Will do." I left Sonellio's office, biting my lip. The same two fingers I had pressed together for the Girl Scout salute had been crossed behind my back when I had promised to stay out of trouble. What can I say? I was never a scout. I was playing with a fingerprint kit while my friends were out selling cookies. Once a cop always a cop, am I right?
Forty-seven—BUSTED
Ima Velez, Ernie's mother spoke in broken English. She was in her mid thirties with dark, wavy hair and thick fleshy cheeks. She came to the door wearing an apron over jeans and a sweater, carrying a can of Goya adobo seasoning in her hand. The apartment was filled with great smells that were billowing from the kitchen. Guess who's coming to dinner, Ernie?
"My goodness, Detective Chalice...everything is all right?" The unmistakable look of concern shrouded her face. She, as any mother would be, was concerned by a policeman's second visit to her home in a short time. She'd absolutely toasted Ernie over his first run in with the law, a fierce temper emerging from beyond the calm exterior. "My Ernie, he do something?"
I smiled reassuringly and shook my head, "No."
Her worried glance disappeared somewhat but not completely. It had yet to be explained why the police were at her front door again. She stepped aside, permitting entry into the small apartment—a one bedroom, Ernie's. A folded blanket and pillow were on the couch. I hoped for her sake that it was a foldout. She gave me a big smile but I could see there was a question waiting behind it. I didn't have to wait for her to say, "Why are you here?" or in her words, "Why you here?" I could read it in her expression.
"How's Ernie doing?" I asked.
"He in he room, doing he homework. New rule in diz house—he do he homework first. He have he snack and then he have to do he homework." Ima nodded to affirm her new policy and that it was strictly enforced. I'm sure the little gangsta didn't like living under house arrest, but Mrs. Velez was taking the right action. I'd seen too many absentee parents with children left uncorrected and unsupervised. Mrs. Velez made it her business to be home from work when Ernie returned from school each day, giving up the opportunity to work overtime, a hard choice, but one that would one day pay huge dividends. She had been patient up until now but I could see that she couldn't hold back any longer, "Why you here?"
"I need Ernie's help with one of my cases. When I spoke with him earlier, he mentioned that he saw a truck going into the garage across the street. Is it okay if I ask him a few questions about what he saw?"
She seemed puzzled but before she could say anything, the sound of a pot boiling over in the kitchen drew her attention.
"Ay. " Mrs. Velez hurried into the kitchen to save dinner. She pointed toward Ernie's bedroom. "Knock on the door, he in dere."
"Thank you." I crossed the apartment and knocked as instructed. I heard Usher playing beyond the door.
Ernie hadn't heard the front door or my brief conversation with his mother. "Yeah, Ma," he responded to my knock.
I twisted the knob and pushed the door open slightly. Ernie was lying belly down on his bed, head propped up with one hand—pencil to paper. His face twisted when he saw me and then jumped off the bed, meeting me at the door, doing his best to bar entry. "What'd I do now?" he said, sounding unhappy.
I winked at him. "Lighten up...it's cool."
"I didn't do nothing?"
"You sure?"
Ernie scratched his head with his pencil. He looked confused. "Na, man, I didn't do nothing. So what, you don't trust me now?" A natural-born confidence man if ever I'd heard one.
"Yes and no, my man. Mostly I need to ask you questions. Can I come in?"
He backed up about two feet, permitting the smallest possible degree of entry. I understood his resistance. The bedroom was a sacred place, a private haven not intended for desecration by a nosy police detective. "Yeah, it's cool." Reaching out toward his dresser, he switched off the CD.
"It's about the truck, Ernie. Remember you told me that you saw two people in it, a man and a woman?"
"Yeah. What of it?"
The wall behind Ernie's bed was covered with rap posters: Tupac, Fat Joe, and his majesty, Eminem. "Where were you when you saw them?"
Ernie pointed to the bedroom window.
"Right there?"
He nodded.
"Mind if I take a look?"
Ernie extended an open palm in the direction of the window, in essence saying, "Knock yourself out." I moved to the window, drew the shade and glanced out. Rousseau Brother's garage was almost directly across the street. I could see it clearly through the branches of a barren maple tree. "You can see a lot from here."
Ernie nodded. "Yup." I love it when kids say yup as opposed to yes or yeah—it makes them sound like...well kids, even a tough as nails kid like Ernie. I scanned the block for a few more seconds before turning back to my wee little man. The reason I had braved another trip to Washington Heights was because I'd had a flash. In my mind I saw Ernie as I had the first time. I was across the street, in front of the garage. He was sitting in front of his house. My first memory was of him snapping my picture with his cell phone. "Say, dude, you still have that cell phone of yours, you know, the camera phone?"
He looked panicky. He put his finger to his lips to shush me. I didn't think his mother could afford that kind of luxury—now I was sure. He walked to the doorway and poked his head out to see if his mother was within earshot. He gave me the all clear. "It's not mine."
"No?" What a surprise. "Whose is it?"
"Dunno."
"Don't know, my butt, Ernie. Now whose phone is it?"
"Told you, I don't know."
"You are so busted. You know what I could do to you?"
Ernie shook his head. I could see that he was on shaky ground. No doubt he was imagining the black hole of Calcutta, filthy prisons from which there was no escape, a place where the routine was hard labor, inedible food, and occasional torture. I was glad that his mind was conjuring up the worst scenario imaginable because I really wasn't sure what to threaten him with. I took a different tact. "You still have it?"
Ernie hemmed and hawed. I glared at him and he gave it up. "Yeah."
"Hand it over, and I mean now."
He walked to his dresser and opened the bottom drawer. He looked over his shoulder, checking my position to make sure that I didn't see any more than I needed to. He grabbed a balled up sweat sock and held it upside down, dangling it from the toe. The cellphone tumbled into his hand. "I just take pictures with it," he said handing it over. "But the battery's dead now."
It was just what I needed, another dead cell phone. It would necessitate another trip to the crime lab. I still had a few hours before leaving for Paris. I'd phoned Tully with a laundry list of tests to run anyway—I'd drop by and give my Jamaican friend a friendly nudge before going home to throw a few hundred things into a bag. "You take a picture of the truck driver with this?"
"Yeah," Ernie answered instantly.
"Only it was dark and it didn't come out."
"You didn't erase it, did you?"
Ernie shrugged.
I didn't know what we'd find on the memory chip but it was worth a shot. The crime lab would be able to enhance the digital image, brighten and enlarge it. With any luck the identity of the coconspirator was in the palm of my hand, his image at the very least.
"Am I still busted?" Ernie asked. He was a street savvy kid but a kid nonetheless and his mother's will was supreme. Behind the stoic veneer, you could see that he was truly worried.
"What am I going to do with you? You think it's cool being a bad ass? I've met a lot of kids, my man, all of them bad asses like you. You know where they hang?"
"In jail, right?" He answered as if he'd been preached to a hundred times.
"That's exactly right. That where you want to spend your days?"
Mrs. Velez was standing behind Ernie. He didn't see her but she was listening to every word. She was nodding to me, giving me her approval to go on.
"No."
"Smart answer. Take that brain of yours and use it for something good. Nobody wins on the street, Ernie, nobody."
Forty-eight—WINGS UP
Lido and I sat in the lap of luxury as Thorne's limo whisked us out of Manhattan to Teterboro Airport in New Jersey where the corporate jet was hangared.
The day had been a blur. I had raced uptown from the house to Washington Heights and then downtown to the crime lab and stopped at Ma's afterward to break the news to her in person before running home to pack. We'd never spent a Christmas apart, which was bad enough, but in addition, it would've been my first ever with Ricky. I'd much rather have spent the holidays at home but as you know, duty calls. Moreover, Lido and I hadn't been "together" in what felt like an eternity and I was looking forward to reuniting as it were. Could you think of a more romantic place for two cops to have reconciliation sex? Lying under the stars, alongside the Seine, atop the Eiffel Tower...in the last car of the Metro if necessary. I was determined to put my own spin on the proverbial European vacation, screwing my way from the left bank to the right and then back again if Lido could take it—anyone feel like betting?
I'd started all the wheels in motion. The crime lab was working on several of my requests, the images stored on Ernie's camera phone and a litany of tests I wanted run on the evidence collected from the apartment on 116th Street. I'd be well over the Atlantic before any information from the crime lab came through. I was eager to hear whether my hunches had checked out, but knew also that a chilled bottle of Dom Perignon likely waited aboard Thorne's jet and that it would greatly contribute toward passing the time as we winged our way to Europe.
Whereas I was running on vapors, Lido was well rested. He'd cut out after the questioning on The Faith had ended, gotten a crisp haircut and gone home to pack. He was wearing a sharp black suit with a merino pullover. He looked absolutely amazing, enough so that I began wondering how large the lavatory on a private jet was and if airplane sex fell under the category of foreplay.
The Faith had taken the fifth, amendment that is, refusing to divulge any information that might tend to incriminate them, acting on the advice of legal counsel. It was not unexpected. Ambler, the DA, and the federal prosecutor had other ways of taking a bite out of The Faith. They would make sure they answered for their involvement in Manny's abduction and the death of Carl Lapsos.
Thorne and Manny were already aboard when we arrived. She bowled me over with a hug and a kiss on the cheek, not the European two-cheek greeting but an honest to goodness American as apple pie smooch. She was beaming at me as she rubbed her lipstick off my cheek.
"There's my girl," she said. Lido got a peck on the cheek too. "Welcome aboard. Come, say hello to Manny. He's almost back to himself," she whispered. "You two are the bomb." Not exactly the language one would use aboard an airliner these days, but it was her jet after all and so...
"It's so nice of you to do this for us, Ms. Thorne. It really wasn't—"
"It certainly was necessary. You're our heroes and I damn well intend to show my appreciation for it. I told Mayor Mike all about the two of you." She glared at us defiantly and then the stem face succumbed to a playful grin. "Screw the formalities, let's have some fun."
Manny was seated upfront near the cockpit. He was busy scribbling away. I wondered whether a new quatrain was coming out but it wasn't, it was, on appearance, just scribble. The bruise on his cheek had healed. He looked clean, freshly groomed, and so much more composed than when I had seen him last.
"Manny," Thorne said, "Say hello to these two nice people." She kneeled next to him and gently stroked his arm hoping to coax a smile for us. Manny's scribbling stopped. He glanced up but never actually looked at either of us. He grinned momentarily, a big silly grin and then in the next instance was scribbling again. Thorne stood and led us aft to where the purser was waiting for us, holding champagne flutes. "He's going to need time." She grew a bit misty. "The important thing is that he's safe. I don't know what I would have done if you—" Thorne shook off the melancholy. She reached for her champagne and waited for us to do the same. "To Paris." She lifted her glass. We toasted and drank.
The hostess stood in attendance. She was not one of Thorne's pretty girls. Don't get me wrong, she was an attractive woman, but not one of the models Thorne surrounded herself with in the boardroom. She had the look of a seasoned professional. "Veuve Clicquot, Ms. Thorne, how do you like it?"
"Has a wonderful bite." She turned to us for approval. Lido and I concurred. To be honest, I didn't know one champagne from the next. I'd always been a Cabernet girl. My father loved his wine and had taught me the ABC rule early on in life, Anything But Chardonnay.
"It's great," I said.
"Love it," Lido said, which was bullshit because I knew he hated champagne and was probably hoping for a Diet Pepsi chaser.
"This is Alicia," Thorne said. "She'll get you anything you need."
Alicia smiled. "Let's get you settled in."
"Wonderful," Thorne said. "I need a word with the pilot. I think we're ready to push off." She toasted us again and then headed for the cockpit. She tickled Manny's chin as she walked by. Manny giggled and went back to his scribbling.
It was a private jet, so the cockpit doors were open. I could see the pilot and copilot going over the preflight checklist. It was a far cry from any jet I had ever flown. The interior of Thorne's flying palace was gorgeous, burl wood veneers and bisque colored leather. Settling into the overstuffed chair was like sinking into a cloud, the comfiest my fanny had been in a long time. The footrest came up unexpectedly, taking my feet out from under me. I almost spilled my champagne. Lido chuckled. All was good. Actually, I was good and tired. I felt the champagne go to my head and my eyelids droop—would have given my badge for twenty winks.
"Ms. Thorne suggested porterhouse with white asparagus tips and yams for supper, will that be good for the two of you or would you prefer something else? I have a full kitchen—anything you like."
"Good by me," Lido said. "Medium rare." He looked as if he had died and gone to heaven.
"Medium rare it is." Alicia turned to me.
"Yeah, great, porterhouse works for me too."
"How would you like that?" Alicia asked.
"Burn it."
"Wonderful. I'll get the appetizers started. We can eat soon after take off. Would you like something else to drink?"
"Do you have diet soda?" Lido asked.
"Coke or Pepsi?"
"Pepsi, thanks." Did I tell you?
Alicia reached for Lido's glass of champagne. "Let me take that nasty champagne off your hands," she said, wrinkling her nose playfully. She turned and walked to the galley at the rear of the jet.
"What do you think—not bad, huh?"
"Bad? This is outrageous," Lido said. "Do you think the whole week is going to be like this?"
"Yeah, except for when we're locked away screwing our brains out." I winked at Lido and lifted my
glass. "Vive la France."
Lido blushed. We both turned forward just as the hatch was sealed.
Thorne walked aft, accompanied by the pilot. They stopped in between our two seats.
"Stephanie, Gus, meet our pilot, Joe Douglas. Joe's been whisking me around the globe for years." Thorne pinched his cheek affectionately and then rested her head against his shoulder. "Can't tell you what I would have done without him."
I doubt Lido saw it but I did, the look on Thorne's face as she leaned against Douglas' shoulder. Douglas was a good looking man, not pretty, more of what you'd call ruggedly handsome, with a square jaw and piercing blue eyes. He looked about forty. Flecks of gray had begun to work their way into his thick black hair.
"Fly the friendly skies," Douglas said with a firm handshake and a self assured grin.
Thorne giggled like a schoolgirl. "I can't get him to stop saying that. Joe used to fly jumbo jets for United." Honestly, it made me feel good knowing she was as human as the rest of us, with needs and desires and weaknesses.
Fly the friendly skies? You've got to be kidding. Thorne was still holding onto his arm. Fly friendly Joe was more like it. She was focused on him as if she had found nirvana and no, I'm not talking about Kurt Cobain, but yes it suddenly smelled like teen spirit to me. I should have realized that globetrotting had its perks.
"We're all set," Douglas said. "Flying time is six hours and twenty-three minutes. Have you ever been to Europe before?"
"First time for us," Lido said.
"You'll love it," Douglas said. "It's another world. Well, enjoy. We should have a smooth flight. I'll catch up with you later." Thorne finally gave back Joe's arm. "Up, up, and away," he said and then returned to the cockpit.
"I've got the two of you booked into the George V," Thorne said. "Manny and I will stay there overnight and then we're off to his home village. I've rented a chateau for the week." She slapped Lido on the shoulder. "Not to worry, the two of you will have lots of privacy."
I almost choked on my champagne.
Ransom Beach (Stephanie Chalice Thrillers Book 2) Page 21