Body Movers

by Stephanie Bond

  W esley stood on the small wooden deck at the back of the town house, covering his cigarette and looking over his shoulder out of habit. Carlotta had already left for work, but if she knew he’d started smoking again, he’d never hear the end of it.

  Although at the moment, lung cancer was the least of his concerns.

  He’d arrived home late Monday night to find Carlotta sitting up for him. He’d felt helpless and ashamed when she’d told him about The Carver’s thug jumping her and how that rich bastard Peter Ashford had saved the day. Then he’d gone to his room and reconsidered his plan to ask Tick for a few extra days on Father Thom’s payment. When he was sure his sister was asleep, he’d snuck out, rode his motorcycle to Chance’s and swallowed his pride. Chance, totally stoned and half-naked, pulled the grand Wesley needed out of his wallet and handed it over like it was nothing.

  But it wasn’t nothing. Chance had told him he’d be calling today with details of a job Wesley could do in trade for the money he owed.

  Wesley took a deep drag on his cigarette. He only hoped he didn’t have to kill somebody. If he did, he’d have to work it in around the meeting with his probation officer today.

  His cell phone rang and, as expected, Chance’s number popped up. Wesley took a deep breath. Time to pay the piper. “Hello?”

  “Hey, man, it’s me. Ready to take on that job I told you about?”

  “Yeah,” Wesley said, hoping he sounded more certain than he felt. “What do I have to do?”

  “It’s easy, man. Just deliver a gym bag to a guy in College Park.”

  Alarm bells sounded in Wesley’s head. College Park was one badass place. “That’s all?”

  “Right. I’ll tell you where to meet the guy and what he looks like. He identifies himself, you give him the gym bag, and that’s it. No money changes hands.”

  Wesley pursed his mouth—it didn’t sound too bad…unless he thought about the likely contents of the gym bag. “Okay, but I have to meet with my probation officer first. I’ll come by afterward. See you,” Wesley said and disconnected the call before Chance could tell him something he didn’t want to know.

  The deck looked like hell, he thought, leaning on a loose handrail to take the last couple of puffs on his cigarette. The wood was weathered and gray, the only ornamentation was a rusted-out gas grill, minus the tank, and a few pots of long-dead flowers left over from a kick that Carlotta had gotten on last year after watching a celebrity gardening episode on HGTV. Conversely, Mrs. Winningham’s deck had been converted into a gazebo, with ivy and flowers hanging freaking everywhere. The gay couple on the other side of them had enclosed their deck and turned it into a solarium sunroom.

  He buried his cigarette butt in a pot of dried dirt. The Wrens were dragging down the neighborhood. Since losing the poker tournament, he’d been obsessed with the things he could’ve done with that twenty-five grand.

  But easy come, easy go. There would be other games. He was sure a World Series of Poker bracelet was in his future.

  He waited until he knew that Mrs. Winningham was parked in front of the TV watching The Price Is Right before walking his motorcycle out of the garage. The last thing he needed was for the old bat to mention something to Carlotta about the noise and busting him for driving. A half block down the street, he strapped on his helmet and climbed on, mentally mapping out a route to his probation officer’s building that would keep him off main thoroughfares where cops might be trolling for jerks like him who were driving with a suspended license.

  He made it to the building a little early and parked off the property so he could pretend he’d arrived on foot. While he sat in the waiting room for E. Jones to meet with him, the anticipation of seeing her again helped to dispel some of the dread accumulating in his stomach over the job waiting for him afterward.

  “Wren,” the lady at the counter called, “you’re up.” E. Jones was sitting at her desk, engrossed in a file, when he opened her office door.

  “Come in. Sit down,” she said without looking up.

  He sat, thinking how much better her red hair looked down, falling over her shoulders. She wore an aqua-colored shirt and she looked as if she’d gotten a light sunburn across her nose and cheeks since the previous week. From hiking? Biking? Sunbathing nude?

  “Did you bring your paperwork?” she asked.

  “Yeah.” From his backpack he withdrew the employment status form that Coop had signed, plus the stub from his paycheck that he’d pissed away, and the payment schedule that he’d worked out with the court cashier.

  E. Jones looked over the paperwork and nodded. “Good.” Then she walked to the copy machine in the corner, giving him a glimpse of the contours of her rear end and thighs in a snug skirt—that fell just below her knees, dammit. Weren’t short skirts back in style?

  “How’s your job going?” she asked.

  He stabbed at his glasses. “Great.”

  She walked back to the desk and handed him his original paperwork. “Good, because I’ve spoken to the IT director who deals with the city computer systems, and it’s going to be a few weeks before he can meet with you and assess your, um, strengths. Then you can start your community service.”

  He suspected they were still trying to figure out how much damage he’d done during his cyber break-in. “Okay.”

  “In the meantime, keep working, make your payments to the court and stay out of trouble.”

  “Okay.”

  She sat back in her chair. “How’s your home life?”

  He shrugged. “What do you mean?”

  “I understand that you live with your sister.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Is everything okay?”

  “Sure, other than my sister busting my chops when I mess up.”

  She smiled faintly, then sat forward, giving him a glimpse of cleavage in the vee of her prim button-up shirt. “I talked to the D.A. about your case. He told me about your father.”

  He shifted in his seat. “What he probably didn’t tell you is that my father is innocent.”

  Her fine eyebrows arched. “Are you in contact with your father?”

  “No.”

  “You have no idea where your parents are?”

  He gave a dry laugh. “Are you working for the D.A. now?”

  “I work for the court system.”

  “What do all these questions have to do with me?”

  “I just want to make sure you’re okay. Did you know that you have access to counselors while you’re on probation?”

  He scoffed. “You want me to see a shrink?”

  “I’m only letting you know it’s available if you need to talk to someone.” She gave him a tentative smile. “And I’m no doctor, but I’m a pretty decent listener.”

  His mind rewound through the countless school counselors, nurses and teachers over the years who had told him that he’d feel so much better if only he would talk about his parents leaving. But behind the concerned expressions he’d always detected a gossipy gleam in their eye that made him think they were more interested in the details of his father’s criminal behavior than in helping him deal with the sudden loss of his parents. Besides, at the time, he’d been convinced that his parents would return any day, so why bother?

  He studied the woman sitting in front of him, searching her green eyes for hints of ulterior motives. She looked sincere enough, and God, it was tempting to share with her some of the things he’d been through, if for no other reason than to be in the same room with her. But he had to remind himself that anything he said would likely be reported back to the D.A., and he simply couldn’t risk a verbal slip that might make things worse for his dad.

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” he said, then gripped the arms of his chair. “Are we finished?”

  She nodded, but just before he left, she said, “Wesley…I really do want to see you do well. But for me to help you, you’re going to have to trust me.”

  He hesitated, a little shaken by her inten
sity. She’d pity him if she knew how much he wanted to believe her. He conjured up a cocky grin and waved. “See you next week, E.”

  He drove to Chance’s condo building by way of back roads, with his probation officer’s words about staying out of trouble reverberating through his head. He had a couple of good things going that he didn’t want to mess up: his job, and his impending access to the city’s court records as soon as his community service got under way. And then there was the going-to-jail part of having his probation revoked—that would truly suck.

  When he got to Chance’s tenth-floor midtown condo and knocked on the door, his buddy answered, holding binoculars and flush with excitement. “You got to see this, man—a chick in the tower across from me is walking around her place buck-ass naked.”

  Wesley stepped into the poshly decorated three-bedroom condo. Nickelback blared from the top-of-the-line Bose stereo system. “I think I’ll pass, man. I need to get going.”

  Chance frowned. “Dude, if I didn’t know better, I’d think you were a fag.”

  Frustration billowed in his chest. He was about to put his freedom on the line, and all his friend could think about was T and A. “Come on, man, I just want to get this over with.”

  Chance sighed and set down his binoculars, then disappeared into his bedroom.

  Wesley stepped to the door of one of the spare bedrooms, wincing at the sight of the disheveled, smelly bed and the debris of a partying binge. But he was gratified to see that all his good computer equipment was intact on the bookshelves. He stepped back out just as Chance emerged carrying a generic black gym bag. He handed it to Wesley, who tried not to notice that the bag weighed about ten pounds and appeared to be about half full.

  “The guy’s name is Hobbs,” Chance said. “He’ll meet you in front of the gas station at the corner of Smart and Livingston. Know where that is?”

  “I’ll find it. How will I know this Hobbs?”

  “He’s a short, stocky white dude. He’ll be wearing a green ball cap.”

  “And all I do is hand him the gym bag?”

  “That’s all. Call me when you’ve made the drop.”

  The lingo didn’t exactly ease his fears, but then again, if what Chance was doing was legit, he’d be making “the drop” himself. “What happens if he’s not there?”

  “Don’t worry, he’ll be there.”

  “Okay, I’ll call you.”

  But Chance was already heading back to his balcony with the binoculars. Wesley shook his head and let himself out.

  The gym bag felt bulky and conspicuous in his hand, and he worried that everyone he met on the elevator and in the parking garage knew that he was doing something he shouldn’t be doing.

  He wondered what was in the bag—drugs, for sure, but what kind? Pot? Coke? Crack? OxyContin? Ice? And although Chance drew the line at using heroin, that didn’t mean he wouldn’t broker it.

  By the time Wesley reached his motorcycle, his palms and back were sweaty. His hands shook as he strapped the bag onto his bike. And he was so paranoid that at one point on the back-roads drive to College Park, he even thought someone was following him.

  At the corner of Smart and Livingston, he slowed to cruising speed but didn’t see his green-capped connection. He went down to the next block, turned around and stopped long enough to unstrap the bag so he could simply drive up, hand it off and drive away. Gone in fifteen seconds.

  He pulled away from the curb for another pass. Up ahead he saw a guy with a green cap emerge from the gas station. With his heart thudding in his chest, he geared down and flipped on his signal to turn left across the trickle of traffic.

  Preparing to turn as soon as a red Volkswagen Passat passed by, he frowned in confusion when the VW stopped next to him. The driver’s-side window zipped down to reveal E. Jones’s face, and he was so startled, he killed the bike’s engine. Frantically, he tried to restart it.

  “Don’t drive away, Wesley,” she shouted as his engine roared to life, “or I’ll call the police.”

  He cursed inwardly and threw up the hand not holding the gym bag. “Okay, I’m cool.”

  She put her car in Park, then turned on her hazard lights. “Driving with a suspended license alone is enough for me to have your probation revoked, but what the hell is in the bag?”

  He swallowed hard. “What bag?”

  “The bag you’re holding in your other hand,” she said, pointing. “I followed you to the condo building in midtown, and saw you come out carrying it.”

  “You followed me?” he asked incredulously.

  “I’m allowed to do that. I only expected to bust you for driving your motorcycle on a suspended license—by the way, the helmet hair you had when you came into my office gave you away.” Then she leveled a stone-cold stare at him. “But when I saw the gym bag and followed you here, I realized that I underestimated just how stupid nineteen-year-olds can be.”

  “I don’t know what’s in it,” he said in his defense.

  “Oh, I suspect you know.” She nodded to the green-capped guy on the corner, who now seemed to stand out like a siren. “And I suspect that he knows.”

  Wesley averted his gaze and wildly considered driving off and ditching the bag. Even if his probation was revoked, going to jail for computer hacking was better than going to jail for drug possession.

  “Don’t do it, Wesley,” she said as though sensing his thoughts. “Drive away and life as you know it is over. Or you can give the bag to me.” She put her arm out the window and wiggled her fingers.

  Sweat dripped down his back. Christ, he’d done it now. Go to jail and leave Carlotta alone to clean up his mess. Or trust his green-eyed probation officer, a woman he barely knew, who probably could advance her career by delivering the gym bag straight to the D.A. He goosed the engine.

  “Wesley,” she said, “make one good decision today.”

  He wanted to, dammit. He just wasn’t sure which decision was the good one.

  31

  C arlotta sighed. Wednesdays were typically slow unless a sale or a holiday drove customers in. So much for making headway on her sales numbers.

  There was another reason to dread slow foot traffic. When unoccupied, her mind snapped back to the Ashford and Bolton murders. She kept imagining both women as they were only days ago—living, breathing, going about their daily lives…shopping.

  They’d both died in their designer clothes, Angela in those decadent black boots, and Lisa Bolton in exquisite lingerie.

  Carlotta straightened and, on a hunch, walked to the lingerie department and began fingering through the racks and shelves. Ten minutes into her search she found the lightweight corset that she’d recognized on the dead woman. French, expensive and—yes, there was a God—exclusive to Neiman’s.

  She used a counter phone to call a friend of hers in inventory. “Jeanine, hi, it’s Carlotta. I need a favor.”

  “You got a body you need to move?”

  “What?” Carlotta choked out.

  Jeanine laughed. “Good grief, it’s a joke. What’s with you?”

  “Oh.” Carlotta forced a laugh. “Good one.”

  “What do you need?”

  Carlotta recovered—she was losing her mind. “A good customer wants to buy a piece of expensive lingerie that his wife admired, but wants to make sure she hasn’t already bought it. He’s not sure—you know how men are. Is it possible to look up an item number for our location, then track the purchase of each item back to a name on a credit card? I’d doubt if we carried more than a dozen of this particular item.”

  “It’s possible,” Jeanine said, “but it’ll be a few hours before I can run a report. And if she paid with cash, you’re out of luck.”

  “I understand.” She gave Jeanine the item number and her cell-phone number. “Call me when you have the results?”

  “Will do.”

  “I owe you one.”

  “You owe me about fourteen. When are you going to pay up?”

  Car
lotta bit into her lip. “How do you feel about skin care?”

  “Huh?”

  “I have cleansers, scrubs, peels, all of it pharmaceutical grade. Name your poison.”

  “Hmm—got any glycolic acid gel?”

  “Twenty percent solution.”

  “You’ve got yourself a deal. I’ll call you back.”

  Carlotta returned the receiver and walked back toward her section, wondering how angry Detective Terry would be if he knew she was still asking questions.

  And that after tearing apart her bedroom and car she still hadn’t found that damn cigar.

  “Carlotta to the men’s department,” a woman’s musical voice sang over the P.A. system.

  Carlotta looked toward the ceiling, frowning at the hidden speakers. Pages were made only as a last resort—someone had obviously been by her station and couldn’t find her. She hurried downstairs, perplexed. But when she walked into menswear and saw Dennis Lagerfeld lounging against a counter as if he owned it (and he probably could), she realized that she’d been “summoned.”

  “Carly,” a menswear associate said, shooting arrows her way, “Mr. Lagerfeld asked that you assist him today.”

  “I’d be happy to,” she said, trying to tamp down the nervousness that threatened to paralyze her. The fact that he’d come looking for her told her a lot about the man: He was predatory, accustomed to going after and getting what he wanted. She conjured up a smile. “Hello, Mr. Lagerfeld.”

  He splayed his large hands and she noticed that he wasn’t wearing his wedding ring again. “Please, call me Dennis.”

  She nodded. “Dennis.”

  The other associate slipped away, leaving them alone.

  Still leaning, he perused her skirt suit—yellow-and-gray-striped, with a lime-green T-shirt underneath, and gray T-strap high heels. It was, she relented, a great ensemble, but the man looked at her with those languid, pale eyes of his in a way that made her feel as if she needn’t have bothered getting dressed.

  “You’re looking lovely today,” he oozed.

  “Thank you. You look nice, too.”

  He brushed a hand over the fine knit of his long-sleeve black shirt. In fact, he was dressed all in black, with every garment fitting his big, athletic body like a glove. She couldn’t help but wonder if his leaning pose had been practiced in order to show off his long, muscular figure to best advantage.