The Alex Shanahan Series

by Lynne Heitman

  “Did you get Ottavio?”

  “We got him. We got Arturo, too. Like I said, he’s no dummy. He’s talking up a storm. The thing about being the head guy, the top dog, is you’ve got no bargaining power. You’ve got no one above you. The buck stopped with the big O. He’s going away for a long time.”

  “So in the end, she got what she wanted. Vanessa sent her father to prison.” I remembered the look on Vanessa’s face just before she died. I remembered her looking at me, and the beginnings of the smile that died with her.

  “What about you, George? Are you out of the parts business now?”

  “Yeah. I’m going to miss it a little. I meant what I told you. I love airplanes. I’ve got a pilot’s license and I do restorations when I have the time. This old bird”—he nodded to the Electra—“is a real job we were doing. I hate to let her go.”

  He turned and looked at me. “What about you? Can I buy you lunch?”

  “I’m leaving today. I just stopped by on my way to the airport.”

  “Back to Boston?”

  “For now. I’m not sure where I’m going to be living.” I looked up at the Electra. “The only place I know I won’t be is Detroit.”

  My flight had already been called when Jack finally showed up. I spotted him working his way through what must have been a cruise group moving slowly through the concourse. He was easy to spot. He was the tallest, the youngest, and the only one in the bunch who didn’t have gray hair.

  “I thought you were going to stand me up one last time.”

  “I had to stop for these.” He handed me a box, the kind they use at Logan to ship fresh lobsters. “Something to remember me by.”

  It could only be one thing. “Stone crabs?”

  “The best crabs in the world.”

  “Is the shell already broken, or will I have to unpack my ball-peen hammer?”

  “If you want it bad enough, you’ll figure out how to get it.”

  I set the box down, reached into the pocket of my backpack, and pulled out a few things. First the ring.

  “This is the address of Belinda Culligan Fraley. She lived in Coconut Grove. Would you make sure it gets back to her family?”

  “It would be my honor,” he said.

  Next, the check I’d written that morning after a long chat with my bank. I offered it to him. “I’m pretty sure this won’t bounce, but you might want to wait a day or two to cash it. When I get back to Boston, I’m cashing in a retirement account and I can send you the rest.”

  He opened the check and looked at it. I couldn’t tell from his face if it was more than he expected, or if he was disappointed. “I know it may not be enough, but—”

  “Why don’t you wait and pay me after you’ve started the job?”

  “I’m not taking the job. I called this morning and we had an amicable parting.”

  He smiled. “Was that hard?”

  “Really hard. But more because of the position I put them in. But they were nice about it. And I gave them someone else to look at.”

  “Who?”

  “Phil Ryczbicki. I told Bic if he’d give Felix a job, I’d pass his name along. Felix starts at Majestic next month.”

  He folded the check and ran one finger along the crease. “Do you know what you’re going to do?”

  “I’m going to do what I want to do. I just have to figure out what that is.”

  “In that case”—he opened the check and tore it in half—“take this and invest it in yourself. I can’t think of any better use for the money.” He handed me the two pieces.

  “Are you sure?”

  “I don’t have room for a washer and dryer in my place, anyway. Just promise to come back and see me.” I felt like crying. Maybe it was because we knew without even saying it that we didn’t fit into each other’s futures. Maybe because, for the first time in my life, my future was so uncertain. And exciting. Instead, I opened my arms for a hug. He walked into it, wrapped his arms around me, and squeezed tight.

  “Take care of yourself, Jack Dolan.”

  “Ladies and gentlemen, this is the cockpit. We’re next in line for takeoff.”

  I finished my drink and put my seat-back all the way up.

  “It’s a beautiful day for flying. As of last night, it looks as though the wildfires you might have heard about down here are mostly under control, so you should have a good clear view out your window as we leave Miami today. So sit back, relax, and enjoy your flight to Boston… or wherever your final destination may be.”

  First Class Killing

  An Alex Shanahan Thriller

  Lynne Heitman

  Copyright

  Diversion Books

  A Division of Diversion Publishing Corp.

  443 Park Avenue South, Suite 1008

  New York, NY 10016

  www.DiversionBooks.com

  Copyright © 2004 by Lynne Heitman

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  For more information, email info@diversionbooks.com

  First Diversion Books edition June 2014

  ISBN: 978-1-62681-351-9

  Prologue

  He didn’t like touching her, but sometimes he couldn’t help himself. He would start out with both hands clamped to the bottom of his seat. He would keep them there as long as he could, until both arms shook with the effort of his resistance. When he could fight it no more, one hand would slide over and entangle itself in her long, silky hair. Then the other, and, before he knew it, he was guiding her with both hands through the rough rhythm his body craved. Not that she needed much guidance. For someone so young, she was preternaturally gifted at reading a man’s desires and anticipating his needs.

  After he finished, he would leave the chair and turn his back on her.

  “Go wait for me out front,” he would say. “I’ll be right there.”

  He would listen for the door to close before buckling his belt and zipping his fly. He would stand in front of the small mirror on the wall, smooth the hair on both sides, and wait until his breathing had slowed and his face had returned to its normal pinkish tint.

  When he was ready, he would walk through the door and down the aisle, use his key to open the door, and take his place in the small, cramped booth. He would slide back the screen that separated the two of them and wait for her to begin.

  “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned…”

  Chapter One

  She looked right at me. I was sure of it. First her head whipped around. Her hair, blond and loose and foamy as the head on a latte, swept across her bare back. I was freezing and miserable in my rental car. Had been for almost two hours. How could she be standing on the sidewalk looking so comfortable and so damned elegant in a strapless silk cocktail dress? But then, that’s how hookers are paid to look. Her shoulders turned next. They were battleship-wide, which they had to be to support the extravagant forward weight of what she carried out front. Her hips swung around, and finally the Jimmy Choo cha-cha heels upon which the whole package balanced. Perfect.

  Smile, Angel.

  I hit the button and let the camera run. It clicked and whirred for four or five exposures as I studied her face through the zoom lens. It was disconcerting, the way she stared in my direction, the way she bore down with an intensity so ferocious I was sure her eyes could see through the night, through the wrong end of the lens, and into mine.

  But she couldn’t see me. I had chosen my parking space carefully—across the street, half a block down, parallel parked in a line of cars away from any streetlights.

  As Angel posed and stared, the limo driver loitered respectfully to the side, holding the back door open for her. Eventually, the second subject, Sal
ly, came swiveling out the door of the hotel and down the driveway. She put a hand on Angel’s shoulder, and they exchanged words. Sally apparently did not have her friend’s wary nature. She slipped right into the back of the limo, pausing long enough to extract a cigarette from her bag, which the diffident driver lit for her.

  Without ever looking completely satisfied, Angel folded herself into the backseat, and I pulled the camera back inside the car, careful not to bump the horn. I wasn’t accustomed to the heavy weight and wide turning radius of the long lens. But I had to use it because, so far, I’d never been able to get close enough to capture anything useful without it.

  I waited until the limo was off the hotel drive and on the street in front of me before clicking off a few shots of the license plate. The driver accommodated me nicely by slowing almost to a crawl. When his brake lights engaged, the camera was still in position in front of my face, which was why it took me longer than it should have to realize he was moving backward. Roaring backward. Motor-gunning, rubber-burning backward up the quiet street and toward me.

  Oh, shit.

  I dumped the camera on the seat and fumbled for the keys in the ignition. But the second I touched them, I knew, even if the driver didn’t block me in with his limo boat, there was no way I was getting that car out of that space in time to get away.

  I grabbed my gear bag from the floor and threw it over the camera. I hooked my finger into the door latch and was about to pop it open when I remembered. Dome light. It would flash on when I opened the door, lighting me up like a beacon. I prayed for the switch to be in the vicinity of the light itself. I reached up. Prayer answered, but with a nasty twist. The switch had three settings. One would turn the light off completely. The other would turn it on. Which one? Which position?

  No time left.

  I braced myself and flicked the switch all the way over. Still dark. No light, either, when I opened the door and slithered through. I went out headfirst, activating the power locks on my way by. I landed on the curb just as the limo screeched up. I leaned against my door, barely able to hear anything over the sound of my heart whomping in my ears. I waited for the driver to step out and slam his door shut. When he did, I pushed on mine until it latched and locked.

  Who knew a Lincoln would be built so low to the ground? The space between the curb and the car’s undercarriage was almost too narrow for me, and I thanked my lucky stars that I wasn’t built like Angel. I flattened out on my back and wriggled through. Barely. The driver was rounding the back of the car when I pulled the last appendage under the chassis.

  The lower half of his legs and his shoes were all I could see, but that was plenty. From across the street, he had looked like an usher at a mob funeral. He paused on each side of the car, probably to peer through the windows. I lay there, sniffing the vehicle’s greasy underbelly and inhaling the limo’s carbon monoxide. My head was swimming from the toxic mix as he loitered on the side where I’d hidden the camera.

  When he finally moved on, it wasn’t to the limo. He went to the car parked in front of mine and did the same casual, half-assed inspection, and I got the distinct feeling the impromptu search had been Angel’s idea and not his. Lucky me. If the driver had been slightly more invested, or perhaps a tad more limber, I might have found myself staring into his big, fleshy face instead of his muscular calves.

  I stayed in my grimy pit until I heard the limo pulling out. I waited until I was sure it was gone. Then I had to stay down another few moments, long enough to fire up my circulatory system. I crawled out on the street side, which had more clearance. Smelling like oil and smeared with a thick layer of grit, I staggered to my feet and leaned against the car.

  With my hands on my knees, I enjoyed a few deep breaths of nontoxic air and thought about Angel. I kept seeing her face, and her eyes, and the way she had fixed on my position and stared for no reason I could think of, except that she had a sixth sense, the one coyotes use to survive a hard life on the high plains. Or the one a leopard uses to stalk, attack, and tear the hide from its prey before the unlucky victim ever senses mortal danger. Angel was a pro. From everything I’d heard, she’d been at this game a long time. If I wanted to catch her, I’d have to quit acting as if this were my first case.

  Even though it was.

  Chapter Two

  Irene surveyed the sight in front of us and shook her head.

  “Being a flight attendant used to be so much fun.” She sighed.

  It was the kind of bittersweet lament reserved for things that were loved and lost to the past. Like the first days of a new romance or the last days of blissful childhood, the airline business as we knew it had vanished. It was never coming back.

  The two of us stood at the head of the concourse, staring at the OrangeAir security checkpoint. It was morning rush hour in Pittsburgh, so the operation had the frantic quality of an earthquake response. Everyone talked at once, trying to be heard over the whine of the machinery. The X-ray belts cycled constantly. The magnetometers went off regularly, each alarm adding to the number of bored/angry/confused passengers that waited like an army of scarecrows for an individual wand search.

  “Thank God we’re in uniform,” was all I could say as we cut to the front of the line and flashed our airline IDs. I waited for Irene to pick her queue and then jumped into one that was guaranteed to take longer.

  As expected, she triggered the alarm as she passed through the metal detector. Airports all over the country had dialed up the sensitivity on the magnetometers, and we never failed to trip them. It was the multitude of buttons on our uniforms, which meant every OrangeAir employee all over the United States made them go off every time he or she passed through. It seemed needlessly inefficient to me, but then, I was no longer in charge of an airport operation. I was no longer in charge of much of anything.

  To my relief, Irene slipped through with only a quick pass of the wand. She was cleared before I had even begun digging out my laptop and my cell phone. When it appeared she was intent on waiting for me, I dropped my phone and kicked it under the X-ray machine. Down on my hands and knees to retrieve it, I motioned to Irene across the great divide. “You should go on. I’ll be here a while.”

  “Okay. I’ll see you onboard.”

  When she was well out of sight, I pulled the camera equipment from my bag and sent it through on the belt. The agent monitoring the X-ray called over a supervisor, who took one look at the gear in my bucket and let out a weary sigh.

  “What is this for, ma’am?”

  “I’m a photography buff.”

  He hoisted the long lens and studied it. Then he studied me. “What do you need this for?”

  “Close-ups. I’m a bird watcher.”

  “Uh-huh.” He tipped his head back and looked down at me through narrowed eyes, and I knew I was one more irritation on a shift that didn’t need any more. “Step over here if you will, please.”

  It would have been so much easier if I could have just checked the equipment through, but that would have been a guaranteed way to blow my cover. Real flight attendants never checked baggage when they worked. Any flight attendant would tell you a good one can circle the globe twice on the items that could fit into the space of a single carry-on bag, and still have room for souvenirs. But then, as I was demonstrating almost daily, I wasn’t a very good flight attendant.

  I was through the gauntlet and headed down the concourse when I heard the sound of my name.

  “Alexaaaandra.”

  Tristan’s voice rang out over the communal airport mumble. I turned to find him: He was easy to spot since he was traveling, as he often did, at the center of a rolling circus. Today, as always, he was the ringmaster, the obvious instigator, and the lone male, leading a posse of women who were many sizes, shapes, and colors but had one thing in common: they liked to laugh. Riotously.

  I waved and stepped outside the swiftly moving current of travelers to wait for him. There were half hugs and air kisses all around as he parted from
the group. The women headed down a separate concourse. Tristan trundled my way, dragging his bag behind him. Tristan was so elegant he even trundled gracefully.

  “Where were you last night?” He greeted me with my very own smooch on the lips, and we rejoined the march toward the departure gates. We were working the same trip home. “Reenie and I looked all over for you. We were worried.”

  His concern was genuine. During my assignment, I’d flown with an overwhelming majority of women, but it turned out that Tristan McNabb, a gay man, was the person with whom I had bonded most quickly. That also made him the person I had to lie to most often.

  “I unplugged the phone and went to bed early.”

  “Then why do you look so tired?” He turned to look at me more closely, doing a quick inspection of my face as we moved. “Getting overtired is not good for your skin. I’ve told you that. You need a facial.”

  “I can’t afford facials. I’ve told you that.”

  “That’s like saying you can’t afford food. Where’s Reenie? Have you seen her yet this morning?”

  “She’s already onboard.”

  “Not likely.” Just as he did, I caught sight of the steady stream of passengers coming off our aircraft, which had obviously arrived late. Irene had to be in the departure lounge somewhere. I spotted the back of her head. “Over there.” We threaded our way through the arriving and departing passengers to join her at a far grouping of seats by the window.

  “Hello, Reenie, dear.” Tristan had to lean over to give Irene her good morning kiss. She had settled into one of the seats in the lounge to work on a knitting project. Tristan reached down to get a closer look “Please don’t tell me this is more dog attire. Knitting is so terribly banal to begin with, but knitting for a dog—”