Double Die (A Nick Teffinger Thriller / Read in Any Order)

by R. J. Jagger

  The vessel was dark and gently tugging at the ropes.

  He stepped aboard.

  The cabin door was padlocked.

  He tugged on the front hatch to see if it was latched from beneath.

  It wasn’t.

  He muscled it open and dropped down.

  Inside he hunted around until he found a flashlight and a toolbox and then jimmied the storage lock off.

  He pulled out sail repair materials and shined the light in.

  The aluminum case didn’t come into view.

  He got down on his stomach and took a better look.

  The case wasn’t there.

  At the 4Runner he told Del Rey, “It’s gone. Dandan must have moved it earlier today, probably when I was meeting with Rail.”

  “So now what?”

  “I’m betting she has it with her,” he said.

  They headed back to the Green Dragon Oriental Massage and pushed through the front door the same as before. The young beauty in the wrapped kimono came to greet them the same as before. Unlike before, though, the woman didn’t say, “Follow me.”

  This time she said, “Dandan left.”

  “When?”

  “Ten minutes ago.”

  “To where?”

  “I don’t know. She didn’t say.”

  “Is she coming back?”

  “I don’t think so. She was carrying her suitcase.”

  77

  Day Nine

  July 16

  Wednesday Morning

  Wednesday morning Jori-Lee got a call from Leland Everitt who said, “You made quite the impression yesterday. I’m officially authorized to offer you a position at Overton & Frey. If you’re interested and would like to come down, we can talk about salary and benefits and the like.”

  “Yes, I’m interested.”

  She arrived an hour later and ended up spending most of the morning with HR signing forms and going over employment policies she cared nothing about.

  Then she got pointed to her new office.

  Ten minutes later Zahara Knox came in and closed the door.

  “This is opposite of running,” she said.

  Jori-Lee nodded.

  “I appreciate the warning and want you to know you don’t have to worry about me ever mentioning it to anyone.”

  The woman studied her.

  “Well, good luck to you.”

  “Thanks.”

  She was assigned to a mentor, senior partner Adam Black, who in turn temporarily assigned her to assist the litigation department, which in turn wasted no time in turning her into a billable-hour machine.

  Mid-afternoon her phone rang.

  It was Zahara.

  “Adam Black is a spy for Leland Everitt,” the woman said. “Be careful what you say to him.”

  The line died.

  She reached into her purse and pulled out the keycard given to her by HR this morning, the one that would get her in and out of the firm after hours, plus activate the elevator.

  It felt nice in her hand.

  Then she made friends, played nice, and spent the rest of the afternoon trying to get as much work on her desk as she could.

  The word spread.

  Lawyers showed up with files, dogs they wanted to get rid of, dogs that barked because the case was a loser, or the client was a slow pay or no pay, or because the work was duller than dirt.

  She didn’t care.

  She smiled and took it all as if it was gold.

  By the end of the day she had more than she could do in a week.

  She could justify being around after hours.

  78

  Day Nine

  July 16

  Wednesday Morning

  Dandan and her stupid little painting held the key to everything. Teffinger and Del Rey spent a good chunk of Wednesday morning trying to track her down, only to find that she was nowhere—not at her apartment, not at work, not at the Green Dragon, not at the Island Packard, not on the other end of her cell phone, not in the backseat, not anywhere.

  Nine o’clock came and went and she didn’t call.

  She was one the run with her precious little treasure.

  Her plan was obvious; sell the painting and retire to a life of luxury someplace no one would ever find her.

  Screw her job.

  Screw her friends.

  Screw her past.

  Screw everything but the insane pile of money.

  Where was she, right now, this minute?

  Somewhere …

  Would she leave San Francisco?

  It was definitely possible but Teffinger’s gut didn’t feel it. The woman knew the area. She knew the haunts. She knew the escape routes. She knew where to run. Most importantly, she still had lots of contacts to tap if her back got up against the wall. On top of that, travelling with the Van Gogh would be problematic. It was in too nice of a case. Someone would cast an eye on it and wonder what little wonder was inside that deserved such a fine shelter.

  No, she’d go to lengths to keep eyes of it.

  That meant staying in San Francisco.

  A hotel would require a credit card. She was too smart to use her own but might borrowed one from a friend. Even then, though, she’d be too afraid to leave the painting alone.

  “I think she’s somewhere in Chinatown,” Del Rey said. “That’s where her roots are. That’s where she’ll feel the safest. That’s where she’ll have the most eyes protecting her. Plus it’s easy to look down on street level and see who’s there, meaning not just you and me, but Rail and whoever it is that’s after him, i.e., after the painting.”

  Teffinger didn’t disagree.

  “I need coffee,” he said.

  Teffinger hated Starbucks. It was too expensive and too much of an ordeal to get a cup filled. There was always a line and the top two things Teffinger hated in the world were lines and lines. One popped up though, convenient as hell, so they stopped in.

  The line wasn’t that bad.

  The coffee was hot.

  The booth was clean.

  “There’s one person Dandan can’t cut communications with,” he said. “That’s her black market friend, the one selling the painting for her.”

  Del Rey nodded.

  “And?”

  “And if we could find her—she said he was a she, remember?—we might be able to use her as a conduit.”

  “That’s just swapping one impossible task for another,” Del Rey said. “You’re not going to crack into that code.”

  “True but Rail already has.”

  Del Rey considered it and then shook her head.

  “Even if he knows, or could figure it out, why would he tell us? Why wouldn’t he just follow the lead himself?”

  “Because he doesn’t know there’s a problem yet.”

  “Right but he will as soon as we tell him.”

  “That’s why we’re not going to tell him.”

  Teffinger took a long swallow off coffee and then called Rail. “We don’t have Dandan completely on board yet,” he said. “She’s still mulling over the prospect of selling the painting herself.”

  “Then she’s dead,” Rail said. “Tell her that.”

  Teffinger exhaled.

  “She’s working with a broker, a female broker. What I want to do is shut her down.”

  “How?”

  “I need her name,” Teffinger said. “Once I have it I’ll flood the Internet with buzz about how the FBI and INTERPOL are closing in on her. No one will want to touch her. Dandan won’t be able to find another broker. She’ll have no option but to take your offer.”

  Silence.

  “I don’t like this,” Rail said.

  “Your call,” Teffinger said. “Either help me or don’t.”

  He hung up.

  Fifteen minutes later Rail called back and said, “The woman’s name is Savina Bandini. She works at Gallery Corsa, which is an art gallery in Rome. You didn’t hear it from me.”

  “I’
ll be in touch.”

  “Don’t let this drag out,” Rail said. “Starting at five o’clock tonight our truce is forever off. At that point you do what you need to do and so will I.”

  “Fair enough.”

  79

  Day Nine

  July 16

  Wednesday Morning

  Rome was ahead of San Francisco, time wise; how far, Teffinger didn’t know, but it could easily be the end of the workday there or maybe even evening. He got Gallery Corsa’s number from the Internet and dialed from his cell.

  Don’t be closed.

  Don’t be closed.

  Don’t be closed.

  A man answered in Italian. Teffinger asked for Savina Bandini and got put on hold for a full minute before a woman’s voice came through.

  “Ciao.”

  “Is this Savina Bandini?” Teffinger said.

  The woman answered in English.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m calling about a special painting that you may have for sale. It has a view of the sea in it. It was painted quite some time ago.”

  “Who is this?”

  “My name is Nick Teffinger,” he said. “I’m calling from San Francisco.”

  “I’m with a client right now,” she said. “I’ll call you back.”

  The line died.

  Teffinger powered off, swallowed what was left of his coffee and said, “She’s going to check me out.”

  “Why’d you give her your real name?”

  “Because I’m going to play this one straight up.”

  “Do you think that’s smart?”

  “We’ll find out.”

  Thirty minutes later Savina Bandini called back. Her voice was slightly different, possibly coming through a more secure line.

  “No one knows you,” she said.

  “That doesn’t matter. What matters is that your client, Dandan Phon, stole the painting.”

  Silence, then, “I’m aware of the history.”

  “Walk away from this one,” Teffinger said. “If you don’t, Dandan will be dead by the end of the week. My suspicion is that you won’t be far behind.”

  “Are you trying to scare me?”

  “I’m just stating facts. Trust me, this one isn’t worth the risk.”

  “That’s interesting but it’s also moot,” she said. “The piece went under contract an hour ago.”

  “Call it off.”

  “That’s not the way this business works.”

  She hung up.

  80

  Day Nine

  July 16

  Wednesday Morning

  Teffinger’s head filled with bark and bite. Rail would never tell him where Susan Smith was, or who killed Kelly Nine, unless Teffinger delivered the Van Gogh to him. Now that was impossible.

  “The exchange hasn’t been made yet, right?” Del Rey said.

  Teffinger nodded.

  “That’s my assumption. If it just went under contract, the buyer would still need to travel to San Francisco, or wherever the exchange is going to be. The buyer’s also going to need to get the painting authenticated, meaning an expert will need to look at it.”

  “So Dandan still has it.”

  Teffinger nodded.

  “That’s my assumption.”

  “We still have time to find it then.”

  Teffinger frowned.

  “And what, steal it from her?”

  “If we have to.”

  He shook his head.

  “She’ll end up dead.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Out of Starbucks Teffinger maneuvered the 4Runner into thick traffic and went with the flow, needing motion but having no destination. He could deal with a lot of things but not knowing what to do next wasn’t one of them. It clawed at him from under his skin.

  He needed a plan.

  He needed it now.

  A block passed.

  Del Rey powered up the radio.

  A Nirvana song filled the air.

  Here we are now, entertain us—

  “We have Sirius,” she said.

  “See if they have a Beatles station.”

  “They probably do.”

  She leaned forward to work the knobs.

  Suddenly the windows exploded with a violent impact so absolute that Teffinger’s entire body jolted. His window vaporized. Noisy air rushed in where the glass should be. Del Rey’s window was equally gone. A blue car to their side squealed to the right around a corner. It was then that Teffinger realized what happened.

  They’d been shot.

  Del Rey’s face was contorted with fear but there was no blood.

  She hadn’t been hit.

  Teffinger focused on the disappearing car.

  It was getting away fast.

  He slammed on the brakes.

  Someone from behind rammed him.

  81

  Day Nine

  July 16

  Wednesday Afternoon

  A pale-faced detective by the name of Eric Blocker processed the scene. Teffinger cooperated to the extent necessary, letting him know about the ripped bird in Del Rey’s house, the second one on the dock last night, and his theory that he might be the intended target. It was definitely an attempted murder, but attempted at to which one of them, he wasn’t sure.

  Teffinger didn’t get much of a look at the guy in the blue car but the look he got was good enough to tell it wasn’t Rail.

  So he said nothing about Rail.

  He also said nothing about Dandan, Kelly Nine or the Van Gogh. Those dominos were too close together and too unstable to have a stranger stomping around them.

  Trap informed Avis that their vehicle was being temporarily held for processing. They understood and amazingly delivered a replacement vehicle right to the scene.

  It was two hours before Teffinger was able to get in the new 4Runner and pull away.

  “You’re not impressed with that detective,” Del Rey said.

  “Actually he’s perfect,” Teffinger said.

  “Meaning he’s not smart enough to get in our way.”

  He smiled.

  “Let’s just say he processed an attempted murder scene right at the scene without removing the intended victims to a safe location. I didn’t say anything because I was hoping the guy in the blue car would swing by to gander at all the stir he created.”

  “Did he?”

  “Possibly,” he said. “There were a few potentially matching cars with male drivers. I jotted down their license numbers.”

  “So that’s what you were writing.”

  He nodded.

  “Actually this whole thing was good. I’m glad it happened. First of all we know that Rail was telling the truth when he said it wasn’t him that was after you or me. That means he might also actually be telling the truth when he said Susan Smith was still alive. More importantly, though, it gave me a chance to slow down and clear my head. I think I may have come up with a new plan.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Sure, we’re going to head this way.”

  “Why?”

  “Because that’s the way we need to go.”

  “Why?”

  “Because if we don’t go this way we won’t end up at our destination.”

  She punched him on the arm.

  “You know what your problem is? You never stop being you.”

  He smiled.

  Then he called Sydney and said, “I have some California plates I need you to run. But first, what’d you find out about that Tuesday? What happened that turned Kelly Nine into a contract?”

  “Unknown,” she said. “Nothing’s visible yet.”

  “Keep digging.”

  “I will.”

  “All the way to China,” he said.

  Dandan lived on the second floor of a narrow house between the financial district and Chinatown, a short walk from the Market trolley. Teffinger circled the area three times before finally finding
a parking spot big enough for the 4Runner.

  Del Rey wasn’t in the best of moods.

  “Tell me what the plan is,” she said.

  Teffinger exhaled.

  “I’m technically still not sure I want to go through with it, but here it is in rough form,” he said. “Obviously Dandan can’t renege on the contract that her broker got for her. She still has the painting, though, at least short-term. What I’m hoping she’ll do, if we can get in touch with her, is let me borrow it.”

  “Borrow it?”

  “If I can get it in hand and then prove to Rail I have it—which pretty much means showing it to him—I’ll make him give me the information on Susan Smith and on Kelly Nine before I turn the painting over. Once I get the information, screw him.”

  “You don’t give him the painting?”

  “No. The painting goes back to Dandan.”

  “That will be tricky, logistically speaking,” Del Rey said. “How are you going to not give him the painting?”

  “I’ll think of a way to slip it out of the case at the last minute. He’ll walk away thinking it’s inside. By the time he figures it out, I’ll be gone.”

  Del Rey wasn’t impressed.

  “I doubt that he’s that easily fooled,” she said. “And even if you succeed, he’ll come back and kill you. Plus he’ll figure out that Dandan was working with you and kill her too.”

  Teffinger cocked his head.

  “He’s already out to kill her,” he said. “The only way she can get out of that is to turn the painting back over to him, which she’s not going to do. She’ll have to go on the run but that’s something she’s got to do in any event, at least until Rail is either behind bars or dead.”

  “You actually want him to come after you,” she said. “That way you can kill him and it will be self-defense.”

  Teffinger shrugged.

  “I’m not going to force him to come after me,” he said. “It will be his choice. If he chooses to do so he better be prepared.”

  “This is all a big plan to avenge the death of Kelly Nine.”

  Teffinger went to deny it.

  No words came out.

  They were at the front door.