by Joe Conlan
On a typical winter evening, it would be impossible to find a public parking space across from Annie’s building. The Ft. Lauderdale Beach nightlife had resurged since the City Council cleaned up the area and did away with the traditional Spring Break night clubs and bars of the mid-nineteen eighties. That night, Daniel was able to parallel park in one of many available spaces. As he turned off the ignition to his vehicle and prepared to exit, his cell phone rang. It was Mancini.
“Hi Jim. What do you have for me?”
“It’s not good news. I’ll get straight to it. Mrs. Richards did accompany the suspect to the Avis parking lot. He was recorded speaking to the parking lot attendant and at various points, he and Mrs. Richards were seen walking together to the 2007 Ford Expedition the suspect rented. I called and got the number of the attendant working last night and the shuttle bus driver. Both were able to give a basic description of Mrs. Richards and height and weight guesses about the suspect. Neither got a good look at his face. I’m gonna have someone sent out there to show them a picture pulled from the tapes and see if it jogs his memory...to help with the police sketch artist. He just might be able to come up with something decent with the software and graphic arts they use these days.
Getting back to the tape, the suspect loaded six bags into the rear while the woman waited in the front passenger seat. Obviously, this confirms your hunch she accepted a ride. Of course, the camera was shooting his back as he stacked the bags. When he returned the luggage cart to its stand, he avoided the cameras like he did at both airports. None of them caught a frontal view of his face. The worst part happened after he put a final bag into the SUV. He opened the front zipper pouch and took out a rag and a bottle of clear liquid. Before he poured the liquid into the rag, the brazen bastard actually held the bottle up high for the camera. No question he wanted us to see him going through the process. When he entered through the driver’s side front door, our view was obstructed. I don’t think there’s much doubt he’s our man. The liquid had to be some type of anesthetic because cameras catching the vehicle as it exited the garage got Mrs. Richards slumped forward in her seat. They only managed shadows of the driver.”
“Has anyone talked to Robin Stein?” inquired Daniel.
“Not yet.”
“I’m just getting to Annie Bryan’s place to show her the Ft. Lauderdale Airport surveillance tapes. She’s Mrs. Richards’ closest friend in Florida and an expert in security procedures. She has a sharp eye. I’m hoping she can help, maybe recognize someone in the tapes who could have been hanging around her building. We’ll call Mrs. Stein to update her on the latest. Of course, I won’t mention any particulars about the rag and clear liquid. I think we should keep that information to ourselves for the time being. Has her son arrived yet from California?”
“I believe one of the agents from the ransom squad is on his way to the airport to pick him up now.”
“Great. She’s gonna need all the support she can get. Thanks for your help, Jim. You’ve done some great work. Now go home and take care of that pregnant wife of yours.”
“I don’t think she’s home yet from the mall, but I’m definitely ready to put my feet up and have a beer. Isn’t Annie Bryan the chick you asked to marry you way back when?”
“Yeah, she’s the one who called me yesterday, worried about Mrs. Richards.”
“Oh ok. You didn’t mention that. She works for a cruise line now, doesn’t she?”
“Yes, she’s their head of security.”
“Hopefully she’ll be able to help. I’m outta here. I’ll talk to you tomorrow unless something comes up before then.”
After ending the call, Daniel exited his vehicle and crossed the street to Annie’s building. He approached the security station where Harry, the overnight security guard, was on duty. Annie phoned the front desk earlier to warn them she was expecting a guest. After Daniel identified himself, Harry gave him a nod signaling he could pass. Several minutes later, the elevator doors slid open on the 10th floor. He proceeded to the opposite end of the hall and knocked on Annie’s door. When she opened it, his eyes were immediately drawn to the strapless Diane Von Furstenberg peach colored dress that clung to her skin showing every feminine curve of her body.
“Hello Daniel. Come on in. Make yourself comfortable. Can I get you something to drink? Maybe a glass of wine?” She gave him a quick peck on the cheek and led him into the living room.
“I’m not sure that’s such a good idea. I have to drive. How much have you had to drink? I prefer that you have a clear head when you look at these tapes.” Annie, who was holding a half-full glass of wine, responded. “This is only my second. Don’t get your panties in a bunch. I’m not drunk although I’d like to be. You’ve had a long difficult day yourself. You deserve to have something to relax you. I know how much you love a great Sangiovese. I opened up a bottle before you got here. One glass isn’t gonna hurt you. You’re gonna be here for a while and you’re eating. You’ll be fine.”
“Oh alright. You twisted my arm.”
“I didn’t think you’d resist even that long.”
“It smells great in here. I’m about to pass out from starvation.”
“I’ll get the water boiling. Dinner should be ready in about ten minutes or so. We can watch the tapes after we eat. Go ahead and have a seat. I’ll be back in a minute.”
Annie poured Daniel a glass of wine then retired to the kitchen. Daniel sat on the plush, brown leather sofa and took a sip of the Sangiovese. It felt really good to finally take a moment to sit back and unwind. As he took advantage of the spectacular view of the beach and dark sky fusing with the invisible sea, a red light flashed across his field of vision that seemed to come from the street below. He stood up to look down at the area where he thought it came from, but the beach was deserted. He dismissed it, concluding it must have been his imagination, sat back down on the comfortable sofa and put his feet up on the ottoman. Scanning the room, he thought about how Annie had done extremely well for herself. This certainly was the life. She lived in a beautiful, spacious apartment overlooking Ft. Lauderdale Beach and the Atlantic Ocean. He felt a hint of bitterness as he considered this was what Annie chose over him, then immediately quashed the idea.
Annie joined him in the living room several minutes later with her glass of wine and the remainder of the bottle. She sat on the sofa next to Daniel, positioning herself a little bit closer to him than what would be considered appropriate. Daniel joked though in reality, he was very serious. Suddenly his efforts at discipline were about to be thrown out the window.
“You’re not going to try to get me drunk and take advantage of me, are you?”
“That wasn’t nice. My friend disappeared, could be dead on the side of the street somewhere and I’m thinking about sex? I’m sure I’ll be able to control myself and keep my hands off of you.”
“I’m sorry, Annie. That was insensitive.” For a moment, Daniel felt the bite of disappointment.
“I’ll forgive you this time.” She lifted the bottle from the coffee table and started to refill Daniel’s glass. Refusing a drink or two in the evening was far from his normal practice. Tonight, he had to think about driving, but this time, he didn’t have Deborah nagging him to take it easy.
“You keep pouring those, I’m gonna get hammered.”
“Seriously, Daniel. It’s not like you never drank wine before. If I know you, you have at least a couple of drinks in the evening after work. It’s gonna take a lot more than a glass and a half of wine to affect you.”
Annie’s prediction was not exactly accurate. By the time they began dinner, he had a pretty good buzz going. The lack of any food in his system caused the alcohol to go straight to his head. Finally getting some nourishment in his stomach didn’t help much as he downed an additional three glasses of wine during the meal.
After dinner was over, Daniel’s offer to help with the dishes was summarily rejected. Annie insisted he relax in the living room while she straigh
tened up. She opened a third bottle of Shoestring Sangiovese and poured a glass for Daniel which he accepted without complaint. While Annie cleared the table, he fumbled in his brief case in search of the surveillance tapes. He placed the first of the cassettes into the VCR then sat on the love seat facing the television set to wait for Annie.
Once she finished stacking the dishwasher, Annie returned to the living room with the third bottle of wine and an empty glass for herself. She grabbed the remote, turned the TV on and started the first of the tapes. She sat down on the love seat next to Daniel and over the next hour, watched Hannah’s arrival at the airport and her meeting with the suspect. She did her best to focus a professional eye on the events she was witnessing. However, by the time the last tape was finished, she was stricken by such a terror and sadness for her dear friend she couldn’t stop the tears from flowing.
She downed two glasses of wine in quick succession, which didn’t dull the wave of emotion that invaded her spirit. As she continued to cry, she laid her head on Daniel’s right shoulder. In an attempt to comfort her, Daniel put his arm around her and pulled her closer to him. They stared into each other’s eyes and before Daniel had the time to think about what he was doing, he passionately kissed her familiar soft lips. As she stroked his face with her silky hands, a deluge of emotions from years past came rushing to the surface. Both of them lost all self control. The next thing they knew, they were tearing off each other’s clothes. Standing before the picture window, naked, Daniel re-explored Annie’s hard, velvety body from head to toe with his lips, tongue and fingers. The alcohol he consumed in addition to the sexual anticipation caused him to break out in a perspiration that covered his body. The sheen of his skin accentuated the tightly cut muscles of his chest, abdomen and legs. In the heat of passion, Annie fell back onto the carpeted floor pulling Daniel on top of her. For the next twenty minutes, they made love like they had never skipped a beat, the years of separation seeming to melt away. By the time it was over, Annie achieved multiple orgasms. It wasn’t until Daniel rolled off of her onto his back directly in front of the huge window that the significance of what he had just done hit him like a ton of bricks. The idea of having sex with Annie was so enticing; he wasn’t able to stop himself from following through with his plan to take her. Now that the orgasm was over, he was powerless to prevent the guilt from drowning him. In a matter of an instant, his feelings about his intentions and actions made a complete 180 degree about-face. He was in a tailspin in danger of going over the edge.
He took a few moments to catch his breath before he stood up to look for his clothes. Without saying a word, they both got dressed. After they sat down on separate sofas, Daniel was the first to speak.
“That was a mistake.”
Slightly embarrassed by her behavior, taking into account the reason for Daniel’s visit, Annie was struck silent. If she were to admit her true feelings, she would tell Daniel she had been waiting for that moment for a long time. It wasn’t like she hadn’t made it quite clear. Analyzing the situation on a more profound level, there probably wasn’t much of a question she set the whole thing up. Adding Hannah’s disappearance to the equation, Annie was figuring she had some serious soul searching to do. There were several characteristics about her personality and objectives that could be considered downright disgusting. Through it all, the fact remained she had wanted Daniel, wasn’t over him and evidently his marriage and children weren’t going to stop her.
“Are you going to say anything?” Daniel persisted.
“I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“I can’t believe that just happened. This is a fuck’n mess.”
“Well Daniel, we’re the only two people who know. It’s not like I’m gonna say anything.”
“Is that all you’re worried about? Whether anyone finds out? I’ve got a wife and kids. It’s just fuck’n wrong. I don’t know what got into me. Damnit. What a huge mistake.”
Annie knew what Daniel was saying was true, but couldn’t help feeling a twinge of hurt by his reaction. Somewhere deep down, beneath all the games, fronts and self-protection mechanisms, there was no doubt she still had intense feelings for him. Her behavior, however, had been no less than despicable, immoral and had gone way beyond the appropriate boundaries. Why she was considering all this now rather than before when it could have been prevented was anyone’s guess.
“I’m sorry. I suppose this was all my fault. I don’t know what else to say.”
“I shouldn’t have come over here. I knew it wasn’t a good idea. I wanted it just as much as you did. Shit, what am I gonna do?”
Daniel’s confession didn’t go unnoticed though Annie smartly decided not to explore it at the moment. “Just relax, Daniel. I know you feel horrible. Shit, if the wind blows, you feel guilty. I’m not saying you don’t have good reason. We just have to deal with it now. No one’s gonna find out. I promise, and I mean it...I won’t say anything to anyone, not a soul. Let’s just get back to what you came for. We’ll sort all this stuff out some other time. Here we are acting like two horny teenage kids while one of my best friends could be in the hands of some deranged maniac as we speak.”
The smoldering fires of hell couldn’t match the intensity of the fury that blazed in Shem’s midsection, making his stomach feel like a furnace stuffed with glowing hot coals. He was crazed to the point that he was having trouble thinking with clarity. A thousand thoughts fought for supremacy at the same time. One repeatedly made it to the forefront- the idea that the mother-fucking, cheating cocksucker had the unmitigated gall to force himself on his Annie. The state of bliss he was experiencing for the past twenty four hours was already a distant memory.
He never expected his evening to come to this when earlier he waited in his parked car across from the Maya Marca entrance anticipating Annie would appear any minute. Instead, Daniel Falcone pulled into the parking space directly behind his Acura Integra. At first, he didn’t realize it was the FBI agent. He strained his eyes squinting for a look through his rearview mirror, unable in the faded light of the lamppost to see the driver through the tinted windshield. Five minutes later, Falcone exited the vehicle and jogged toward Annie’s building carrying a large briefcase.
Initially, Shem wasn’t that concerned about the agent’s arrival. He figured the authorities were aware of the Jew whore’s disappearance by now and it was probable a representative from the FBI would be meeting with building officials. Though Shem didn’t like the idea, he didn’t doubt Falcone would stop by Annie’s apartment. He had an inkling Annie might communicate with the agent after her neighbor was discovered missing. Not for one second did he permit himself to believe the visit would be for any other purpose except to discuss the Tucker slut look-a-like. After the agent entered the building, Shem reached into his backseat, grabbed his equipment bag then hopped out of his car. He hurried toward the beach and set the bag behind a large palm tree. Scouting the area, he confirmed that the street was still devoid of pedestrians. Vehicle traffic was light and the beach was totally deserted.
The stiff land breeze blowing in from the northwest pounded at his face as he looked up toward Annie’s apartment hoping that the curtains were open. He ignored the sting of the cold on his naked face and eyes pleased to see not only was that the case, every light in the place had been switched on. His view into the living room area with his binoculars was nothing short of crystal clear. Looking through the high-powered magnifiers, he had a perfect perspective of the living room and an ideal sightline of the leather sofa, love seat and entertainment center. Fixing his gaze on the penthouse apartment windows, there was no sign of life for the first ten minutes. Shortly thereafter, Daniel sat on the leather sofa, giving Shem a full frontal view of the FBI agent. Shem saw that Annie’s guest had removed his suit jacket, loosened his tie and was drinking a glass of wine. It forced him to reconsider his opinion regarding Falcone’s motives for the visit and wonder about its true purpose.
Without thinkin
g, Shem pulled his laser sight 9mm pistol from his bag and pointed it at the agent’s temple. The urge to pull the trigger was so strong, for a fleeting moment, he didn’t think he was going to be able to resist. At the last minute, he changed his mind, deliberately causing the target beam to quickly pass over both of the agent’s eyes. The thought of exercising some power over Falcone helped calm him for an instant. With the agility of someone half his size, Shem ducked behind the palm tree making sure both he and his bag were completely out of sight. Seconds later, he could sense a pair of eyes combing the area from above. Allowing several minutes to pass, he peeked out from behind the tree up toward the apartment. If the agent had investigated the laser target, he had given up.
Checking the living room more closely with his binoculars, Shem saw that Annie had joined Falcone on the sofa. She was also drinking a glass of wine and had placed the remainder of the bottle on the coffee table. If knowing the agent was drinking wasn’t enough to affect his peace of mind, seeing Annie indulge with him did the trick. His distress and anger increased ten-fold when they disappeared for more than thirty minutes. He was starting to regret not having pulled the trigger when he had the chance.
With his thought processes in overdrive, Shem tried his best not to pace or fidget while he waited for an opportunity to get an idea of what was happening in the apartment. Not knowing made him tense, a feeling he didn’t handle well. His imagination wasn’t being kind to him either. When the wait was finally over, it was the agent who entered the living room first. Falcone took what appeared to be videotapes out of his briefcase. Shem’s tranquility was partially restored when the agent tested the VCR, showing the first few seconds of the airport surveillance tape. Perhaps this wasn’t a social visit, after all.
Though Shem was very curious about his performance on the tapes, he didn’t avert his gaze from Annie and the agent for more than a few seconds at a time. They were sitting way too close on the love seat for his comfort. At the conclusion of the tapes, he doggedly watched as Annie gulped down two glasses of wine. He zoomed in on her eyes and saw they were overflowing with tears. What happened immediately after tested the limits of his self control more than any experience in his entire life. When he saw the agent kissing his Annie, then ripping her clothes from her body, he seriously reconsidered going for his gun to blow the man’s brains out. He boiled over with unparalleled rage. He struggled to control his impulses and emotions. It was a difficult battle that he came extremely close to losing. In the end, his calculating and reasonable self prevailed. In place of the pistol, he pulled his camcorder from the bag and began to record the horror as it unfolded. The wheels of his calculating mind were already furiously churning.