by Tom Fowler
“I’m sorry.”
Brian gave a small smile and took a deep breath before continuing. “Chris and I have always been close, so he invited me to live with him and his girlfriend.”
“Is she gone, too?”
“Yeah,” he said after pondering it for a second. “I guess I didn’t think about it, but I haven’t seen her for a couple days, either.”
“Maybe they took a vacation,” I said.
“No, he would tell me.”
“Maybe they went to Vegas to get married.”
“He’d tell me something like that,” Brian said, shaking his head. “It’s why I’m concerned.”
I took a notebook from my top desk drawer and jotted down a few details, mostly about the names Brian threw at me. “What’s the girlfriend’s name?” I said.
“Anna. Anna Blair.”
I jotted it down. “Oh, and I have to ask—do you spell Brian with an I or a Y?”
“An I.”
“Thank goodness.”
My fake relief got him to grin. “I’ve never liked the Y, either,” he said.
“I need a timeline,” I said, refocusing us back to why Brian came to see me. “Today is Tuesday. When’s the last time you saw your brother?”
Brian thought about timeframes for a second. “Saturday night,” he said.
“You’re sure?”
“Yes. He was awake and doing something on his computer when I went to bed. He seemed pretty engrossed in it. Probably another raid or something. I could never get into those games. Anyway, when I got up Sunday, he and Anna were gone. I haven’t seen them since.”
“I presume you’ve tried to reach him.”
“He doesn’t answer his cell. No response to texts or emails.”
“What’s his cell number?”
“410-555-9190.”
I tried it from my office phone and put the call on speaker. After five rings, we got a voicemail. I ended the call without leaving a message.
“You’ve been home alone the last two days, then,” I said.
“Yes.”
“How old are you?”
“Sixteen,” said Brian.
“You go to school?”
“Of course.”
“Where?”
“Kenwood.”
“In the county?”
“Yeah, we live in Rosedale.”
I looked at my clock. “So you got from Kenwood to Federal Hill around lunchtime on a school day.”
“Tuesday’s a light day for me.”
“And now you’re home alone,” I said.
“I can take care of myself.”
“Maybe you can, but you can see how this is concerning.”
Brian rolled his eyes. “What are you going to do, tell the county I’m living by myself for now? Find my brother and it all changes.”
“I’m not going to dime you out,” I said. “I simply want you to be aware of your situation.”
“What do you mean?”
“Your brother and his girlfriend have been gone for two days. You can’t reach them. We have to consider the possibility this wasn’t of his own accord.”
Brian frowned and nodded. I could tell he’d already considered it. How could he not, having lost both parents already? “I know,” he said. “I thought about it.”
“Have you also considered whoever made him disappear now knows you’re home by yourself?”
I watched the rosy color flee Brian’s cheeks. “No,” he said, confirming the obvious. “What should I do?”
“First, you should call the county police and file a missing persons report. Two days is enough time for them to start looking into things. Do you have anyone else you can stay with?”
He shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
“No other family?” I said.
“Not locally.”
“Friends?”
“I could ask.”
“Ask. It might be overcautious, but we don’t know at this point.”
“All right. Does all of this advice mean you’re going to help me?”
“I’d be kind of a dick if I said no at this point, wouldn’t I?” I said.
“Totally,” he said.
“Well, I guess I can’t be a dick,” I said.
I hoped I didn’t need a new car. My Lexus sedan threw about every warning light possible a couple days ago. The dealer told me it would be a while and also be expensive. I loved my car, but good sense required me to consider a new one. For now, I drove a blue Chevy Caprice Classic I acquired a couple months ago. In exchange for not ratting him out, the chop shop owner gave me a good deal. The car would win no prizes for aesthetics, but its V8 engine still responded with alacrity when I stepped on the gas. It also blended in with other cars better than a silver Lexus.
The Caprice came with an automatic transmission. I loathed automatics. My Lexus was one of the few sedans made with a manual. It was now an endangered creature. The new luxury sport sedans didn’t have the option, and I wasn’t paying Lexus prices for a coupe. Acura and Infiniti suffered from the same problems.
This combination of factors led me to a BMW dealership. The salesman looked askance at my Caprice as I got out. “My other car is a Lexus,” I said.
“And now you’re ready for German luxury?” he said.
“I’m ready for a test drive.”
He brought around a black 340i with the M sport package. “I don’t have one in a manual,” he said. “People just don’t get them as often anymore.”
“Most people are missing out,” I said.
“You know it. I know it. They don’t know it.”
He fetched a license plate, and we got into the car. I liked the feel of the seats. The steering wheel felt good in my hands. If I liked the way the car drove, it would make a fine replacement for the Lexus. I took it out on the road. Towson in the afternoon does not allow many opportunities to open the throttle. I wanted to gauge how the turbocharged inline-6 responded but had no such opportunities. The car drove well. I managed not to hate the automatic, though I noted when I would have held a gear longer or downshifted at a different time.
After about a half-hour of listening to a sales pitch while negotiating Towson traffic, I turned back into the dealer’s lot. The salesman reminded me he didn’t have my phone number. I told him he was correct and left. Once I was back in the Caprice, I tried calling Chris Sellers again. No answer.
I thought about Brian Sellers on the drive back to Federal Hill. His father left when he was young. I could probably find the dad, but would it do any good? He didn’t want to be involved with his sons then; why should now be any different? With his mother also gone, Chris may have been Brian’s last living relative, and now Chris was missing, too. Brian was a bright teenager who just lost the most important person in his world.
My sister died when I was sixteen. I knew how he felt.
Chapter 2
I called Kenwood High School and got Brian’s schedule. All it took was me saying I was Chris Sellers and could you send it to this other email address instead? I seem to have been locked out of my primary one. You can? Thanks. People want to be helpful, which makes social engineering so much easier.
I continued my run of low-tech hacking by getting Chris and Brian’s address from the phone book. If this continued, I’d have to cancel my Internet service and go into hiding. I settled for going to Rosedale and sitting on the house. Brian attended a study group and band practice after school. He wouldn’t be home for a few hours yet. I hoped Chris would show up and solve my case for me. It would keep the lack of technology going, if nothing else.
Looking at Brian’s schedule passed a little time. High school schedules changed a lot since I was sixteen. Brian enjoyed more free time and more classes to prepare him for college. How did high school—and a public high school, no less—manage to become so much more efficient in the last dozen years? Brian took a good course load, with AP classes in math and history. I noticed the lack of any comp
uter science class. Perhaps secondary education failed to make the quantum leap I first thought.
After about an hour, I got the suspicion Chris Sellers may not be coming home. Another hour cemented my hunch. It’s important for detectives to develop keen intuition. I then developed my observation skills by watching a woman in a sports bra and tiny shorts jog down the street. You never know who might be packing a concealed weapon. My observations left me confident the jogger was clean.
Once the jogger left the street, I called Sergeant Gonzalez with the Baltimore County Police. He and I had worked together a couple times, and I knew he’d be delighted to hear from me. “What now?” he said.
“I was just thinking how happy you’d be to hear my voice,” I said.
“We aim to please. What’s up?”
“Anyone file a missing persons report on a Chris Sellers?”
“What am I, the information desk?”
“You keep working with me, and you’ll make lieutenant.”
“Whatever. Hold on.” Elevator music played in my ear. Even the BCPD went the mellow mood music route. I expected crime-stopper tips, some boring public service announcement, or at least better music. I thought about telling Gonzalez, but he would tell me he wasn’t the complaints department. Then I wondered if businesses actually used complaints departments, and how hellish it would be to work in one. Elevator music has an effect on me.
“Had a report filed a couple hours ago,” Gonzalez said as he came back on the line. “You find the guy already?”
“Little too quick, even for me,” I said. “His brother came to me earlier today. I told him to file a report.”
“Brian his brother?”
“The young man would be he.”
“He? Listen to you.”
“I have to show off my private school education when I can,” I said.
“You know anything about this missing guy?”
“I know about as much as you.”
“When it changes, you tell me,” Gonzalez said.
“You, too.”
“Sure,” he said and hung up.
I went back to developing my intuition. No more comely joggers came by and allowed me to practice my powers of observation. I lamented their absence as I drove away about a half-hour later.
After I got home, I surveyed the state of my refrigerator. Its state was not good. My pantry proved little better. I saw a few options for cooking, but nothing struck me as good. A perk to living in Federal Hill was the abundance of restaurants and bars. Anything I wanted to eat could be gotten within a few blocks. The tradeoff was living around so many hipsters and yuppies—I could get whatever food I desired, but I rarely wanted to stay and eat it.
I set off from my house to get dinner. By the end of the block, the combination of heat and humidity already set me to sweating. There are four seasons of equal length on the calendar. There are also four seasons on the Maryland calendar, but their lengths are far from equal. Spring starts sometime around late March and gets chased out by summer six weeks later. Memorial Day, theoretically in the spring, comes with temperatures near ninety and humidity to match. Welcome to Baltimore, where the summer air is so thick it could double as a soup.
A few minutes later, the blessed coolness of The Abbey’s air conditioning washed over me. I ordered a Santa Fe burger and fries and enjoyed a craft beer of difficult pronunciation while I waited. It tasted good, even if I would have trouble ordering it again without pointing at the beer list. After ten more minutes, armed with dinner in a plastic bag, I braved the hot, humid air and walked back to my house.
I just finished eating when my doorbell rang. No one called first. Clients, current or prospective, rarely dropped in on me. Maybe I would need to get a real office if I wanted those visits. What’s the point of putting your feet up on your desk if no one can see you do it? I went to the front door and looked through the peephole. A tall, thin man in a decent gray suit stood on my stoop. Behind him, a Town Car sat double-parked. I opened the door. “Yes?”
“Mr. E would like to speak with you,” the man said.
Obviously, the identity of Mr. E was supposed to be clear to me. “Who the hell is Mr. E?” I said.
“Do you have a few minutes?” he said in a non-answer.
“Sure.”
“Thank you, sir.” He turned and started toward the Lincoln.
“Call me Mr. F,” I said to his back.
I sat behind my desk. Mr. E and his driver, who found a parking spot, sat in my guest chairs. The driver pulled a small, rectangular device out of his pants pocket and pressed a button. I heard a faint buzzing sound. I glanced at my phone. No signal. I reached down and eased the second drawer of my desk open. If these guys brought a cell phone jammer, I wanted a gun in easy reach.
“Mr. E doesn’t like electronics,” the driver said.
“What does Mr. E think is inside your little box?” I said.
The driver smiled. Mr. E smiled. I smiled, too. Smiles all around. “I presume Mr. E will replace my phone if your fucking gadget destroys it.”
“It won’t,” Mr. E said.
“I’m so relieved.” They didn’t say anything else. I didn’t feel like carrying the conversation, so I fell silent, too. Let them break it.
After a minute, Mr. E did. “You remember me?” he said.
I looked closer. His suit was a few shades darker and a few hundred dollars more expensive than his driver’s. He possessed the classic Italian complexion along with dark eyes and black hair. I guessed him to be about forty-five and wondered if the black came from a bottle. Stubble covered a face which would look the same if he shaved every hour. A few bits of gray dotted his five o’clock shadow. When he had been standing, I pegged Mr. E for five-ten, giving me four inches on him. He had an average build—not fat, not skinny, and not muscular. His voice sounded familiar, but I couldn’t place it. “No,” I said after a moment of thought.
“I remember you,” he said. “You used to play in Tony’s poker games. Hell, you were the only one there under twenty-one.”
Tony Rizzo, the head of organized crime in Baltimore, once hosted poker games at his restaurant in Little Italy. Tony had been a friend of my parents forever. I started playing in the poker games when I was in high school and played right on through my college years. I was no threat to turn pro, but I could hold my own at the table. Within the remembered context, I remembered seeing a younger version of Mr. E’s face and hearing his voice. “I can place you now,” I said.
“Always good to be remembered. Alberto Esposito.” He extended his hand. I shook it.
“Now I know what the E stands for. At least I’ve solved one mystery today.”
“I think I solved that one for you.”
“I’m taking credit for it,” I said. “What can I do for you?”
“I want to tell you a story,” he said. “I was in Tony’s crew. We were pretty tight. In a few years, I was basically his right-hand guy. I figure he’s gonna groom me to take over for him one day.”
“Tony has a daughter.”
“A daughter . . . but not a son. What? You think some broad is gonna run things when Tony’s gone?”
“I’m pretty sure Gabriella isn’t ‘some broad,’” I said.
“Sure,” Esposito said with a wave of his hand. I could forgive his casual sexism, but I knew Gabriella. We were the same age. “Anyway, Tony was acting like he wanted to hand it over to me someday. Turns out, not so much.”
“What happened?”
“Four years ago, he tells me I can’t learn anymore from him. He sends me to Cleveland.” Esposito scoffed and shook his head. “Fucking Cleveland. You ever been?”
“No.”
“Don’t. It sucks.”
“I’ll cross it off my bucket list,” I said.
“Make sure you do.”
“So you were in Cleveland. Did you have to stay there?”
“It’s where Tony sent me,” he said. “The guy in Cleveland is an asshole
. Younger than Tony and a little more modern but without the old-school business sense Tony has, you know? He and Tony are friends, so he agreed to show me around and teach me what he could. I spent four years there. I learned everything the dumb shit knew in a month.”
“Why did you stay?” I said.
“Tony wanted me there. I wanted to come back. Even told Tony, but he wanted me to stay and learn. I says I learned all I could. Tony says I don’t know shit, then. So I tell Tony to go to hell.”
“You’re still alive, so I guess he didn’t take it too personally.”
“Nah. I’d been gone about a year by then.”
“You hated Cleveland, you’d stopped learning from the guy there, and you quit Tony,” I said. “I’m still wondering why you stayed.”
“Money,” Esposito said. “Mr. C wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he knew how to make money. His hands were in a lot of pots. Had a lot of cops and lawyers looking the other way. He knew how to run things.”
“You think Tony doesn’t?”
“I think Tony’s old. What is he now, seventy?”
I shrugged. “Sounds about right.”
“He’s still living off the old rackets. He doesn’t want to get involved in drugs. Fucking blacks and Mexicans make a killing selling drugs. There’s no reason Tony shouldn’t get a cut.”
“Look,” I said, “I don’t really care how Tony makes his money, and I don’t care about untapped markets.”
Esposito smiled again. It looked sincere. “Of course you don’t. You can’t help me with something like a cut of drug money.”
“And I wouldn’t, regardless of my ability to.”
“But there is something you can help me with,” Esposito said. “There’s a killing to be made online. Mobs overseas are doing it. The smart ones here are getting into it. Tony’s a dinosaur; he ain’t gonna touch it.”
I thought about how this situation might relate to me. I still didn’t care how Tony made his money or how much he left on the table by not being the modern mob boss Esposito wanted him to be. Esposito remembered me from Tony’s poker games. He was back in town and sought me out. I doubt he came here for Texas hold-‘em tips. “You want me to help you find ransomware?” I said.