MOLLY

by Dan Ames

  We dug into our food then. ‘The usual’ was a steady stream of small, delicious tacos with everything from chicken to chorizo to shrimp to fire-roasted poblano peppers.

  We tore into them and talk subsided.

  “So what do I owe this expensive meal to?” Barbieri asked me, a touch of guacamole in the corner of her mouth. Damn, it was sexy.

  I washed down the last of a lobster taco, took a drink of my water, smiled at her and asked, “What do you know about the Chief?”

  “My Chief?”

  I shook my head.

  “Oh, you mean the nasty surfer dude who deals drugs and is rumored to be linked with a cartel?”

  “Yeah, that one.”

  “All I know is a delicate flower like you is no match for him.”

  21

  After lunch, Barbieri and I went back to my office where we made mad, passionate love. Okay, kidding. Not at all. Actually what happened was she boxed up the rest of her meal (I had no leftovers as usual) and we parted ways. The only thing she gave me was a promise that she would nose around a little bit among her fellow cops and see if there was any information on the Chief.

  Usually, cops aren’t very talkative but I figured among the boys in blue, there would be more than one or two who would love to have a conversation with Barbieri.

  Her talent was always on full display.

  On my way out, I grabbed a toothpick, put it in the corner of my mouth and climbed into the Maverick. The thing I wanted to do now was get a feel for the Chief, see if there was any kind of routine. Trouble was, the Maverick wasn’t a great vehicle to use. There was a buddy of mine who drove a Toyota Corolla, beige, that I called the world’s most invisible car. Sometimes I would let him use the Maverick so I could borrow the Corolla for surveillance.

  But I was feeling a little impatient, so I drove back to the area on the beach where I’d spotted the Chief and Molly before, and parked in a spot at the ass-end of the lot, well away from anyone who might see me approaching.

  After locking up the car, I made my way to the beach, past the surfing area where only one guy was plying his trade in the water. A skinny white guy covered in tats.

  From there, I walked across the boardwalk back to the street, and followed the sidewalk toward the Chief’s place.

  It wasn’t a long walk, but the sun was out and I broke a sweat. A small one. Nothing wrong with that. In fact, it felt good. Although I worked out a lot in my home gym in the garage, I preferred exercising outdoors. The sun felt good, and I’d spent plenty of long winters in Michigan, enough to appreciate the warmth of a sunny day, even if they arrived one after the other.

  The street bordered the beach, and I frequently had to skirt around people either arriving or departing, dragging their beach chairs, umbrellas and coolers. When I had tailed the Chief and Molly previously, I could have sworn I had seen a café or ice cream shop or something not far from his compound.

  Finally, I spotted it.

  Flavio’s Coffee & Cream. A combination coffee and ice cream shop with outdoor seating. The outdoor tables and chairs were the only things I was really interested in, but I went inside and got a tall coffee, just so I could sit outside and watch the Chief’s driveway.

  My vantage point was the last spot of retail before the road turned north, demarcating the commercial zone from the residential. The Chief’s compound was the third one, and certainly overlooked the beach, with sweeping ocean views.

  There was a family seated behind me, pasty white with New Jersey accents. The parents were bickering with each other, the kids were silent. Ah, a family vacation.

  My secret hope was that the Chief would pull out of his compound in his G-Wagon and cruise down to his surf spot. From here, it would be nearly impossible to miss him. Of course, if he was truly loaded with money and living the gangster life, he would have more than one car. Probably a Bentley. Maybe an Italian, too. Ferrari or Lamborghini. I immediately pictured the Chief as a Lambo guy. The Ferrari would be too classic for him.

  The fighting family eventually moved on, and I found my coffee empty and I knew I definitely didn’t want another one. I threw the empty into the garbage can outside the café and walked back to the beach, cruised past the lone surfer and then turned and walked back.

  It was at about the halfway point between the beach and the Chief’s compound when the Rolls-Royce cruised past me. It was driving slowly and even though the windows were tinted, the windshield wasn’t, because it’s illegal to do so.

  The clear view allowed me to get a good look at the passenger.

  It was a beautiful young white woman.

  Molly.

  The driver was unmistakable.

  The Chief.

  And he was looking right at me.

  22

  The great thing about Florida beach towns are the brazen attempts of retailers to sell the cheapest, flimsiest crap to desperate tourists for exorbitant sums. A little plastic beach chair that would be overpriced for ninety-nine cents at a dollar store in Indiana? Yeah, we’re going to let you have that for $14.99.

  To think that the tourists from Indiana weren’t going to have any of that would be foolish, because the stores seemed to be booming with the kind of foot traffic (or flip-flop traffic) that would be the envy of every H&M on the planet.

  It wasn’t too much trouble to duck into one of them, buy a Florida Gator T-shirt and a weird kind of country music cowboy hat made out of a cross between plastic and cardboard. I looked like Toby Keith if he was on Skid Row.

  Nevertheless, since the Chief had gotten a good look at me, I figured it might be better to make a little change to my appearance. I had an idea in the back of my mind and I was hoping it would work.

  Back I went to the beach, my hat pulled low and my body set to relax mode. There was a lazy quality to tourists on the beach, even the Type-A personalities. My strategy was to look like a guy half-interested in collecting seashells and half-interested in ogling women in bikinis. It was a stretch, I know, but I’m a method actor and take my craft very seriously.

  By the time I made it up to the group of surfers lounging by the best of the waves, the wind had picked up a bit, which was perfect.

  It was almost like a cliché. The first people on beach towels was a group of four who were some of the most sickly white people I’d ever seen. All looking like they just got out of juvie. Lots of piercings and big gnarly tattoos everywhere.

  Beyond them, a guy who was way too old sat on a towel playing a clunky ukulele and singing some kind of song that sounded more like a dying sea mammal than anything else.

  The crazy bastard was selling cassette tapes of his music.

  Cassette tapes!

  He would have made more money selling a cassette player than his jive ass tapes. Vintage always sells better.

  The wind picked up steam and it was almost like the fates were intervening. Because as the waves picked up, several of the surfers from the large group beyond the horrible ukulele player picked up the boards and dashed toward the water.

  The last in line was the Chief.

  He was even bigger and more impressive in person. A little shorter than my 6’3” but a whole lot wider. He picked the board up one-handed which was an impressive feat in and of itself, and trotted toward the water with it balanced on his shoulder.

  All of which left Molly without her companion sitting in an anti-gravity chaise lounge. There was another young woman next to her, and a third sitting a few yards back, smoking a cigarette.

  It was now or never.

  “Molly?” I asked as I approached.

  She glanced over at me, her eyes hidden behind sunglasses. The big round kind, tortoise shell. But even with the eyewear, I could see the resemblance with Margaret. Younger, not as tall, but with the same kind of poise.

  “You were following us,” she said, a small grin on her face.

  No point in denying it. “Your Mom wants me to bring you home. How about we go?”

  She l
aughed, a mirthless exhalation of breath and tone if there ever was one.

  “You actually are as dumb as you look,” she said.

  The girl in back with the cigarette had disappeared, and now she re-emerged with two big guys in black shirts, clearly not dressed for the beach.

  “Enlighten me,” I said.

  “Are you talking to my woman, bro?” the voice came from behind me, and I knew without turning the Chief had caught a wave in as soon as he’d seen me approach Molly.

  Now I was surrounded by three large men. I figured the Chief wasn’t armed, maybe a knife inside his suit, but the two guys were.

  “Take my advice and run along and tell Margaret to save what’s left of her dwindling money,” Molly said. “It’s your healthiest option.”

  “You look familiar to me,” the Chief said.

  His face was dripping with saltwater and he stepped closer to me. I was ready if we were going to go toe-to-toe, but I could tell that wasn’t his plan.

  “Do you have a sister?” he asked me.

  23

  There was a brief moment when the first scenario played out in my mind. It was the one I really wanted to do, because the Chief’s comment about my sister was said with a certain edge.

  He knew something.

  It triggered an urge in me to choke the information out of him on the spot. But I knew it wasn’t the time or the place.

  It still played out in my head, though. The scenario involved knocking out the Chief with an elbow to his jaw, shooting both of the armed security men and hoisting Molly over my shoulder and executing a fireman's carry all the way back to my car.

  Then I would return to the beach and torture the Chief until he gave me the information about my sister I needed.

  As you might imagine, I thought better.

  "No, I'm an only child," I said. "That's why I'm so spoiled. I'm used to getting my own way and being the center of attention."

  There was no response. A seagull flew overhead, thought better about dive bombing this particular group for scraps of soggy sandwich bread, and moved on.

  "Molly doesn't have that experience," I continued. "Her sister goes to Harvard and here she is hanging out on the beach with a bunch of drug-dealing losers."

  Molly sat up a little straighter. "That's a funny observation coming from a guy who probably just slept with a woman whose husband is a criminal and she isn’t much better. In fact, she’s probably worse than he is."

  By now the armed guards in their black T-shirts had come even closer and I could see the thought in their eyes about trying to outflank me on the beach. That would be a bad thing for me. I took a step back gave a little half salute to Molly and turned to the Chief.

  "You and I will be talking a little bit later."

  "Looking forward to it," he said.

  I walked away and threw my ridiculous hat onto the chair of a tourist who was probably splashing around in the water like a beached pilot whale with faulty navigation.

  The Florida Gators T-shirt came off and I tossed it near the outdoor showers for some homeless person to use. Just because you don’t have a permanent address doesn’t mean you can’t root for the home team.

  When I got back to the Maverick I keyed the ignition and hit the road, planning to go to my office and do some more research on Margaret Hornor and her husband. If he was a big finance guy, I could probably find something on the Internet. Molly’s comment had gotten my wheels turning and I wanted more information.

  About a block away from the office my phone buzzed. I glanced down and saw that Barbieri had texted me a PDF which was attached. After parking in my spot at the office, I locked up the Maverick and forwarded the text to my email. Once upstairs and at my desk, I opened the email, downloaded the file and printed it off.

  It was the Chief’s rap sheet. As I suspected he wasn't actually Haitian, he was Jamaican. His father was from Jamaica and his mother was Samoan, which explained the tribal tattoos.

  His criminal history was a perfect example of escalation. Starting with truancy and other juvenile crimes like shoplifting, trespassing and petty theft it then graduated to grand theft auto, assault, battery, and possession.

  He’d done a couple of short stints in jail but it looked like he'd evaded the cops for at least a few years now.

  In the file Barbieri sent me there was a hint that he was linked to a cartel in South America but any information on that was sketchy. But it didn't take a genius to realize that a piece of real estate like he had on the beach would easily go for a couple million. And then throw in the G-Wagon, the Rolls-Royce and you knew that he was raking in some big money.

  After hitting the end of my research leads on the Chief, I decided to turn to Margaret Hornor and her supposed husband/financier.

  A lot of Google searching didn't turn up anything mainly because I didn't know the husband’s first name, so I focused my search on Margaret and was able to find an entry from four years earlier where she had hyphenated her last name.

  I then entered that into Google and learned that she had called herself Margaret Hornor-Boswell.

  So then I searched under the name Margaret Hornor-Boswell and found her linked to a man named John Boswell. There were multiple entries. Most of them in the form of social photographs with captions and charity events, yacht races and fundraising auctions.

  Curious now, I used the image search and typed in “John Boswell.”

  Immediately several rows of photographs appeared, most of them being head shots of John Boswell from corporate websites that clearly dealt with investments.

  On the fourth row of photographs there was a picture of John Boswell with a younger, even better-looking Margaret Hornor.

  So now I knew what the shady money man looked like. That was a good thing because my security system alerted me to somebody at the door and when I checked the camera, I had a pleasant little surprise.

  John Boswell’s face filled my screen.

  24

  Knowing what was about to come I opened the door and he charged in like a blitzing linebacker.

  The most important thing to me at that point was to make sure he didn't crash into my desk or my computer or any of my furniture. So I let him tackle me but in the process I steered him over toward an open area in front of my visitor chairs.

  It was a simple move to let him bring me down but I slid to the side as we fell and when we hit the ground, I immediately slipped on top of him and employed a rear naked chokehold.

  His cologne was probably Hugo Boss. He was a big guy, had possibly played middle linebacker on some small college football team twenty years ago. There was still muscle but it was buried under fat and now on top I could see the side of his face was flushed red.

  Probably not from the exertion.

  From the brief glimpse I’d gotten, this guy looked like he worked hard and played even harder.

  My chokehold was tight and he would go limp in less than 60 seconds unless he tapped out. But that required a certain knowledge of mixed martial arts and he didn't do it.

  I had to grudgingly admire him for that.

  When he finally went limp I let go and dug his wallet and phone out of his pocket and stood over him.

  John Boswell, in the ample flesh.

  His driver’s license was from California, so at least Margaret wasn’t lying about that. His iPhone was locked but I knelt down, grabbed his thumb and pressed it into the touchpad until the screen unlocked.

  As the screen came to life, I let go of his meaty hand and it dropped to the floor where it landed with a smack.

  I scrolled through his messages, most of them were from Margaret. Clearly, they still had some kind of a relationship. He was asking her all kinds of questions and she was being vague in her answers. I also saw that he had sent a bunch of text messages to Molly, all of which she had ignored.

  However, I took advantage of the situation to write down Molly’s cell phone number along with Margaret’s, which was different from th
e one I had. No big surprise there.

  Boswell started to move a little so I ducked into my little kitchen and got him a bottled water. People have told me that getting choked out makes you thirsty. A little tough on the windpipe, after all.

  I leaned against the edge of my reception desk and waited for the big man to come to.

  Finally, he rolled over and opened his eyes.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  “You made a clumsy tackle, I choked you out, sodomized you, and then waited for you to wake up.”

  His face turned red until he realized I wasn’t telling the truth. He even reached down and checked if his pants were still in the proper position. It made me laugh a little bit.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Your family’s dysfunction,” I answered. “Your daughter won’t talk to you, your wife won’t give you a straight answer, and they both think you’re some kind of pathetic white-collar criminal. What are your holiday meals like?”

  He sat up, seemed fascinated by his leather shoes. Gucci, if I had to guess.

  “Lonely,” he said.

  It surprised me. I thought for sure he would be a blowhard, defensive jackass. Maybe getting knocked out had humbled him.

  He glanced at the water bottle in my hand and I tossed it to him. He tried to catch it but it went through his hands and thumped against his chest, then fell into his lap. Foggy brain from a lack of oxygen. He would recover.

  He retrieved it, twisted off the cap and took a long drink. Seemingly more focused now, he glanced over at my visitor’s chair, got to his knees, then stood and dropped into the chair.

  For a moment, we both just looked at each other.

  “Why don’t you tell me why you’re here?” I asked. “And spare me the bullshit. I already know too much.”

  Not exactly true. There was still quite a bit I didn’t know. But the more he thought I knew, the less he would try to lie to me.

  “What do you think? I’m going to let some meathead I don’t know start messing around with my family?” he barked at me. “Sleeping with my ex? Chasing after my daughter?”