by R. J. Jagger
She tried.
It didn’t open.
“It’s locked.”
“He keeps the key in the top desk drawer.”
Jori-Lee found it, unlocked all six drawers and then put it back exactly where she found it.
She opened the top left drawer.
Inside, to the far right, was a black revolver.
Also inside were fifteen or twenty red-rope files.
She pulled the one on the far left out.
It was labeled, “Client X.”
Privileged & Confidential was stamped on the front in red ink. Inside were three manila folders.
Attorney Notes.
Investigator’s Reports.
Transcripts.
Her chest pounded.
“Point of no return,” she said.
Zahara grunted.
“We’re long past that, darling. Work fast.”
“He’s got a gun in here.”
“Did you say a gun?”
Yes, she did.
Zahara looked in, then at Jori-Lee.
“What the hell is he doing with a gun?” She pulled it out and checked it closer. “It’s a Glock. There should be a serial number on here somewhere—” A beat then, “Here it is. Get a pencil, write this down—”
86
Day Nine
July 16
Wednesday Night
In fifteen seconds someone would be dead. The feeling grew more and more pronounced as Teffinger came up the stairs. The weapon got colder in his grip. The muscles got tighter in his face. The air got heavier in his lungs. His head came up to where he could see down the walkway. The man was at the far end spying in a window.
His face was perpendicular to Teffinger, even pointed away to an extent.
Teffinger raised the weapon and headed that way one silent step at a time.
Then something happened.
A door opened.
A woman’s arm came out, grabbed the man by the shirt and pulled him in.
The door closed.
Teffinger exhaled.
It was just a john visiting the whore, just a stupid john making a booty call out in the middle of a cold lonely night.
He shook his head.
You’re officially the king of the dumbasses.
Everyone bow to the king.
The pounding in his chest slowed, something in the nature of a speeding car that had a foot suddenly lift off the accelerator. At least fifteen seconds were gone now. No one was dead. No one would be dead. No one would even be close to dead.
He exhaled.
It was all for nothing.
Now what?
The blue-car guy wasn’t coming for them. The phone call for Doug was nothing more than that, a phone call for Doug.
Teffinger leaned over the railing and shouted, “Del Rey.”
No one answered.
The storm was too loud.
He waved his hands.
“Del Rey.”
She didn’t see him.
She didn’t answer.
He headed down the landing, then down the stairs, then through the endless puddles of the parking lot, no longer a fan of the storm, now only a fan of dry clothes and a soft bed and closed eyes and a mind a peace.
Behind the van, Del Rey wasn’t there.
“Del Rey—”
No one answered.
He circled the vehicle.
She wasn’t there.
She was gone.
“Del Rey!”
No one answered.
“Del Rey!”
She wouldn’t have gone of her own volition, not without telling him, not in a million years. Someone took her, just like Kelly Nine, right out from under his nose. The guy must have been waiting out there in the storm, wedged into a shadow, probably not more than thirty feet away, just waiting and waiting and waiting for the exact right moment.
“Del Rey!”
Teffinger ran toward the street, weapon in hand.
“Del Rey!”
87
Day Nine
July 16
Wednesday Evening
The Glock was interesting. More interesting, though, was the Client X file, which Jori-Lee flipped through. “This is strange stuff,” she said.
“Should we copy it?”
“Yes.”
Zahara grabbed it and said, “I’ll do it. I know how to un-jam the machine. You stay here and keep at it.”
“What if Leland shows up?”
“He won’t.”
Then Zahara was gone.
Jori-Lee kept searching.
The other files were nothing of interest.
The other drawers were equally bland.
Suddenly the hallway lights turned on. Zahara wouldn’t have done that. Someone else was in the building. Jori-Lee shut the credenza, pushed the locks in, powered off the computer and looked for a place to hide, just in case. In the far back corner was a door. She opened it and found herself in a small private bathroom. She ducked inside and shut the door.
Everything turned black.
She held her breath and listened with every fiber of her being.
Then the worst thing that could have happened did. Someone came into the office. The heavy breathing didn’t belong to Zahara.
It belonged to a man.
A briefcase got set on a desk followed by a squish of air from leather, indicating he just sat down.
Seconds passed.
No discernable sounds came.
Then the computer powered up.
A minute later a printer sprang to life and spit out a page, then another, and then another.
The man walked over to it.
The papers shuffled as if being gathered up.
Feet moved.
The computer shut off.
This was good.
Whatever the man came for, now he had it.
Now he’d leave.
He didn’t leave, though. Instead he picked up a phone, dialed and said, “It’s me. I have what you want. Ten o’clock at the Big Kahuna. I’ll be there.”
The voice belonged to Leland Everitt.
The phone went down.
A desk drawer opened, keys rattled, and a credenza door got unlocked. A briefcase snapped open and something got dropped inside. The credenza door closed and the keys went back into the desk.
Footsteps left.
Jori-Lee waited a full minute as she searched for sounds. Then she opened the door a crack, enough to hear clearer. No signs of life came. She poked her head out.
No one was there.
She opened the main door, looked down the hall and saw nothing she shouldn’t.
Then she checked the credenza drawer to see if she was right about what she thought happened.
She was.
The Glock was gone.
She snuck down to the dead-files room. Zahara, un-jamming paper, said, “I’m going to shoot this bitch.”
Jori-Lee told her what just happened.
Zahara listened without interrupting and then said, “Who’s he meeting at ten?”
“I don’t know. He never used a name.”
Zahara got a distant look, refocused and said, “We’ll get the rest of this file copied and get it back in the credenza. Then we’re going to the Big Kahuna.”
Jori-Lee wasn’t so sure.
“I have a feeling we’re turning into the cat,” she said. “The one curiosity killed.”
“Well, here’s a little known fact. A lot of those cats never got killed at all. Probably not even a majority, if you had the statistics.”
88
Day Nine
July 16
Wednesday Night
The storm cut into Teffinger’s face as he sprinted from the back of the parking lot to the street. Fifty yards away the lights of a vehicle suddenly came to life, quickly followed by movement as they left the curb. Other than the taillights, the vehicle took no shape. It could be a blue car but it could equally be a red pickup or a white SUV
.
He hesitated for a heartbeat, deciding.
The vehicle could be innocent.
It could be a mom and a kid.
If it was then Teffinger would apologize afterwards. In the meantime the important thing was to stop it without killing anyone, not until he knew one way or the other.
He aimed for the back tires and pulled the trigger, one, two, three, four, five, six times.
The vehicle fishtailed, crossed the centerline, sped up the road for a long ways and slammed face-first into a telephone pole.
Teffinger ran for it.
As he got closer it took the shape of a sedan.
When he got there the driver’s door was wide open.
No one was behind the wheel.
No one was visible in the storm, either running away or on the ground or otherwise. No one was in the back seat.
“Del Rey!”
No one answered.
Teffinger circled the vehicle, searching the ground.
Nothing was there, only black puddles getting further pounded by the weather.
Then he ran.
Ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty steps past, then something happened. The silhouette of a figure appeared up ahead, not much more than a dark watery blur coming in and out of focus through the storm, but definitely a human. Teffinger ran faster, raising his knees as high as he could given the massive weight of the water on his pants.
The gap closed.
In ten seconds Teffinger would be able to lunge at it.
It took a clearer shape.
It began to look like a woman.
It was Del Rey.
Teffinger slowed.
Suddenly she shouted, “Teffinger, look out!”
He turned.
A large black shape lunged at him out of the peripheral vision of his left side. A violent kick landed on his forearm. The gun flew out of his grip. He tried to follow it with his eyes but a rock-hard punch hit the side of his head. His feet buckled and his body slammed to the asphalt. Before he could even inhale to get air back into his lungs, weight was on him, a knee pressed him down, then iron fists pounded the back of his head with blow after blow after blow.
They weren’t to subdue him.
They were to kill him.
He twisted, then more, and stronger, and somehow got to his feet.
He stood there, wobbly, starved for air, trying to catch his breath, too weak to swing an arm even one more time.
The other man lunged at him.
Teffinger’s brain turned to hate.
It made him forget the pain.
It made him not care whether he lived or died.
It made him lunge back with every molecule of strength he had left.
89
Day Nine
July 16
Wednesday Night
The Big Kahuna started life in the 60s as an upscale bar with surfboards on the walls, barmaids in grass skirts and an endless stream of Beach Boys and Jan & Dean spilling out of the speakers. Now it was a faded wave, a dirty lagoon on a not-so-trendy street in a not-so-safe corner of the urban jungle. People still went there, though, and not just the drunks and hookers and the occasional stray, but businessmen and bankers and lawyers and politicians who knew the place from days gone past and wanted to meet off the beaten path.
Leland Everitt’s silver BMW was parked on the street.
Zahara pulled to the curb four or five spaces behind it and killed the engine.
“That’s his car,” she said. “He’s already here.”
Jori-Lee’s watch said 9:48.
The night was dark.
Streetlights were on but the one in front of the bar was broken.
A neon sign said The Big.
Kahuna was dark.
“So now what?”
“Now we split up and take a stroll,” Zahara said. “You take that side of the bar and I’ll take this side, plus the back parking lot. Write down the license plate number of every car on the street, especially the nice ones, and especially any that pull in between now and ten. Don’t let anyone see you. Keep your face hidden.”
“Then what?”
“Then with any luck Leland and the person he’s meeting with will come out of the bar at the same time. Maybe I’ll recognize him—”
“Or her—”
“Right, or her, but I’m not counting on it. We can see what car the mystery person goes to. We’ll already have the number.”
“Then what?”
“Then we’ll know who Leland met with.”
“That’s not enough,” Jori-Lee said. “We need to get inside and hear what they say.”
Zahara shook her head.
“There’s no way.”
“Is that a gym bag you have in the backseat?”
“Yes, why?”
Jori-Lee hopped into the back and unzipped her dress. “I’m changing out of my work clothes,” she said. “What else do you have in here? Sunglasses or a hat or anything like that?”
“Forget it,” Zahara said. “He’ll know it’s you the minute you walk in the door. Just calm down and lay low. I might recognize the person when he shows up. If they came all the way here for a meeting the last thing they’re going to do is talk loud enough for someone around them to overhear what they’re saying. If you walk in there all you’re going to do is blow the whole deal.”
Jori-Lee kept changing.
“When I get inside I’m going to call you,” she said. “Be sure to pick up. Then I’m going to try to get my phone on their table. With any luck you’ll be able to hear what they say.”
“That’s insane.”
“True but insane is all we have.”
“How are you going to get your phone on their table?”
Jori-Lee wrinkled her brow.
“Give me a twenty,” she said.
“What for?”
“To bribe a waitress.”
Zahara hesitated and then pulled out her wallet.
“Here, take a fifty,” she said. “For the record, though, this will never work.”
“We’ll see.”
Zahara cocked her head.
“I’ll tell you what, if you’re actually going to do this, go in the back door. Don’t even go into the bar area itself. See if you can get in contact with a waitress and tell her what to do.”
Jori-Lee nodded.
“See, now you’re starting to think.”
90
Day Nine
July 16
Wednesday Night
A blond Big Kahuna waitress with red lipstick and a short skirt was not only willing to do whatever it took to earn fifty bucks, but actually showed some creativity. She placed Jori-Lee’s cell phone behind a menu in the booth next to where Leland Everitt was sitting, then managed to spill coke all over his table. Not having a cloth to clean up the mess, she escorted him over to the adjoining booth while profusely apologizing.
Jori-Lee went back the car and listened with Zahara.
Leland occasionally coughed.
The sound was garbled.
At ten o’clock headlights came down the street and a vehicle parallel parked across the street. A man got out and went inside The Big.
Jori-Lee recognized the posture.
“I can’t believe it,” she said. “Do you know who that is?”
Zahara shook her head.
“That’s Preston Wendell.”
“The Preston Wendell?”
“Yes.”
“As in, the Supreme Court justice?”
“No question,” Jori-Lee said. “I’ve spoken to him in the hall a dozen times.”
“Damn.”
Right, damn.
“What’s he doing meeting with Leland Everitt?”
“Hopefully we’ll find out.”
Voices came from the cell phone.
The two men were talking.
What they were talking about, though, was unknown. The phone wasn’t close enough to pick up the conversation. An
occasional word came through but only as an island in an ocean of swill.
“Damn it.”
The meeting lasted ten minutes.
The Supreme Court justice left first.
Leland Everitt followed two minutes later.
At Zahara’s place with white wine in hand, they went through the mysterious Client X file retrieved from Leland’s credenza.
To say it was extraordinary would be an understatement.
Although Leland’s client was not identified by name in the papers, it was evident that he was a private investigator with an office somewhere either in D.C. or the surrounding area.
Someone contacted him anonymously and made him an offer.
The offer was to pay him a million dollars in cash.
He, in turn, was to personally kill, or hire someone to kill, a woman by the name of T’amara Alder.
The investigator took the job.
The cash was paid.
The investigator in turned hired a man named Jean-Luc Baxa to kill T’amara Alder. The deed was done Friday night.
The next day, the investigator hired Leland Everitt to find out who hired him. Who was the anonymous voice on the other end of the phone? The question was critical because the investigator felt that he would be eliminated as someone who knew too much. He wanted to know who to watch out for and who to get some dirt on, if possible, as a shield.
Jori-Lee dropped the file in disgust.
“Nelson Robertson was the voice on the phone. The bastard.”
“So now we have the evidence,” Zahara said.
“Not really.”
“Meaning what?”
Jori-Lee shook her head.
“Meaning this file falls under the attorney-client privilege,” she said. “Even if we made it available to the police or the FBI, they couldn’t use it in a court of law. Nor could they use it to support a search warrant.”
“Yeah, but at least they’d have a lot of facts off the record,” Zahara said. “That would get them sniffing around. Once they do that they’ll come up with evidence on their own.”
Jori-Lee wasn’t impressed.
“We’ll keep it in our back pocket. I want to break this case open with solid evidence, real evidence, the kind of thing you can slap on a wall.”
“You want to be a hero,” Zahara said.