Dangerous Friends (A Carlos McCrary novel Book 4)

by Dallas Gorham

  “Should I call the police?”

  “Not yet. The police never take a missing person report seriously for the first forty-eight hours, unless it’s a child or there’s evidence of foul play. Let’s keep my investigation low-key for now.”

  “If I’ve learned anything in thirty years in the hotel business, it’s that things you hope won’t come out, always do. Always. More so with a celebrity. It’s just a matter of time.” He pushed the stack of pictures together. “You’re right. I’ve got to do something. Okay, Chuck, we keep it off the record. Now tell me: What the hell’s going on in my hotel?”

  “That’s what I intend to find out. And when I do, you’ll be the second one to know—after Bob Martinez.”

  “Come in, Mr. McCrary. Whatever this big emergency is that couldn’t wait ‘til tomorrow, it had better be a matter of life and death, or else I’m gonna be severely pissed.” Giselle Foreman, the chief accountant for the Port City Palace, looked at me over the top of her glasses. “Since I can’t be pissed off at my own boss, you’re next in line. Do I make myself clear?”

  I didn’t have to be a detective to know that she wasn’t a happy camper.

  “Now convince me this was worth me missing a family trip to the beach on a beautiful Sunday afternoon.” She sighed. “Okay, okay, I know it’s not your fault. The boss may know all about managing a hotel, but he stopped using computers when they put more than ten buttons on them. He said to help you any way I can, keep your visit under my hat, and not to ask questions.” She gestured to a chair across from her desk. “Let’s get this over with.”

  I slid the pictures across the desk. “I need to know who these two men are. They’re in rooms 3405 and 3406.”

  “That’s all?” Foreman glanced at the pictures as she slid a keyboard in front of her. “Why couldn’t this wait until tomorrow?”

  “It was Mr. Wallenda’s decision to call you in. And, while I agree with that decision, he should be the one to tell you why it’s important.”

  “Well, he has conveniently gone home and left me holding the bag.”

  “I sympathize with you. If it’s any consolation, this is ruining my Sunday too.”

  She waved it off. “Oh, forget it. I’m just venting. 3405 and 3406, you said? Let’s see… those rooms are both registered to XPVV Corporation. They were checked in with a corporate American Express card at the same time.” She pushed the keyboard aside. “That doesn’t help, does it?”

  “Did they sign a register card when they checked in?”

  Foreman glanced at the screen. “They checked in yesterday. The register cards would be scanned into our data base by now.” She pulled the keyboard over again. “Here they are.” She rotated the monitor so I could see.

  The two signatures were illegible.

  To order Quarterback Trap, click here Amazon.com.

  Day of the Tiger

  The fifth novel in the Carlos McCrary series, Day of the Tiger is available in both electronic and print editions on Amazon.com. Free to Kindle Unlimited members.

  Opposites attract, right? Tank Tyler is a mega-wealthy investment manager and Pro Football Hall of Famer. Al Rice, a victim of drugs and self-pity, has been a miserable failure since being kicked off the football team years ago. The two men share a sordid secret that ruined Al’s life and turned Tank’s dreams into nightmares for sixteen years, in spite of his success—a secret that still entangles the lives of these polar opposites.

  Now Monster Moffett, a sadistic loan shark who once mangled Al’s hand with a ball-peen hammer when he couldn’t repay his loan, again targets Al. Moffett even threatens Al’s mother, Doraleen Rice. When Doraleen begs Tank for help, he hires private investigator Chuck McCrary to protect both Doraleen and Al.

  Chuck exposes a human sex trafficking ring and forced prostitution in the sleazy world of high-priced “Gentlemen’s Clubs”—a world where Chuck will need more than brawn, balls, and bullets to sort out this mess.

  Moffett kidnaps Doraleen Rice to hold as collateral for her son’s debt. Chuck uncovers Moffett’s hideout, but he can’t wait for the FBI. With gun in hand, he invades the heavily-armed gang’s stronghold alone, but he hasn’t counted on facing a knife-wielding African warrior. Now he faces deadly odds of ever seeing the light of day.

  A preview of

  Day of the Tiger

  Tibetan Proverb:

  It is better to live for one day as a tiger than to live for a thousand years as a sheep.

  Chapter 1

  Alfred Rice cringed as the man in black raised the ball-peen hammer above his left hand. “No, for God’s sake, Monster! I paid you the interest. I’ll pay you the rest, I swear.” He struggled to free his arms. Panic rose in his throat like bile.

  “Crummy forty thousand dollars. That pays the interest to last month, you moocher. I told you I want the whole two hundred grand. I don’t trust you no more.” The man in black, Montgomery “Monster” Moffett, raised the hammer again. The industrial fluorescent lights high above the table cast multiple shadows across Rice’s arm. “You’re thirty days past due. This is the late fee.”

  “Monster, I need both hands to work,” Rice pleaded.

  “Hold him steady.” Moffett’s men jammed Rice’s forearm tight against the table. Moffett’s eyes blazed and his breath came quicker as he smashed the back of Rice’s hand with the hammer, shattering the fourth metacarpal bone. The blow crushed the veins and capillaries surrounding the bone. Skin ripped at the ragged edges of the ugly crater in Rice’s brown skin. Subcutaneous bleeding oozed into the crater, filled it, and spilled across the back of his hand like red lava spreading across a brown mountainside. Moffett licked his lips as he got a whiff of blood.

  Rice shrieked like a banshee. His vision blurred as pain dominated his senses and became the focus of his universe.

  “You don’t work, loser; you hang out in strip clubs when you could be making money to pay me back.” Moffett swung the hammer again.

  Rice’s scream echoed off the concrete block walls as his second metacarpal bone splintered. He stared wide-eyed at the second crater that the hammer gouged. Blood pooled, escaped, and mingled with the flow from the first wound. The red stream dripped off the back of Rice’s hand. A red slick began to spread across the table top. Sobbing, he pleaded with Monster. “I swear on my mother’s life I’ll pay you the rest, Monster. I’ll pay you, I swear.”

  “You should’ve thought of that before you tried to welsh on a debt.” Moffett swung the hammer again and pounded a third crater between the first two. “You owe me two hundred large. You’re past due. You got two weeks.”

  Rice’s vision turned to red. He slumped to one side.

  Moffett swirled the bloody pool with the hammer, smearing streaks across the Formica. He laid the gruesome hammer head on Rice’s wrist. He grabbed the frightened man’s ear and twisted it savagely. “You hear me, loser? You listening to me? Huh?”

  Rice mumbled through the bubbles that formed on his lips. He tried to nod, but it hurt his ear.

  Moffett tapped the victim’s wrist with the side of the hammer, leaving a red smear. “In two weeks’ time, I turn Teddy loose on you with his knife. He’ll carve you a reminder to pay your debts. Two weeks after that, I break both arms. Two weeks after that… Well, you did swear on your mother’s life, didn’t you?”

  Rice tried to turn his face toward Moffett. “That’s not what I meant. You can’t—"

  Moffitt twisted Rice’s ear again. “You don’t tell me what I can’t do, loser. You understand me?” He waved at the other two men, who stepped away from Rice.

  Moffett released Rice’s ear and shoved his head away, knocking him off the metal chair.

  Rice peered up from the concrete floor. “You stay away from my mother. Just stay away. Do whatever you want with me. Maybe I deserve whatever I get, but not my mother.” His eyes narrowed. “Not my mother. You touch a hair on her head and I’ll kill you if it’s the last thing I ever do.”

  Moffett kicke
d him in the stomach. “Yeah, and I’m the Tooth Fairy.” He laughed when Rice vomited.

  Rice collapsed in a heap, sobbing as he cradled his ruined hand in the crook of his other arm.

  “Throw this bum out.”

  Chapter 2

  “I owe Al Rice a debt I can’t repay.” Tank Tyler paused to see if I was listening.

  I was looking east out the window of Tank’s sixty-first floor office in Port City’s newest skyscraper, admiring the view of Seeti Bay. The sea breeze had scrubbed the late afternoon air to a clean, crisp blue beyond the window wall. The knife edge of the horizon beyond Port City Beach appeared to be at arm’s-length. “Can you see all the way to Bimini?”

  “Not quite. Look, Chuck, I didn’t ask you here to admire the view. I have a friend who needs help.” He paused. “Earth to McCrary. Earth to McCrary. Come in, McCrary. Hey, you’re the McCrary of McCrary Investigations. I said I have a friend who needs your professional services. Did you even hear me?”

  I turned from the window. “I don’t have to read your lips to hear you, amigo. You owe Al Rice a debt you can’t repay, yada, yada. I got it. Tank, you have more money than Tom Cruise. I would’ve said you have more than you can count, but you’re a Certified freakin’ Public Accountant with a computer for a brain. If you owe this Rice guy a debt, write him a check for crissakes.”

  He sighed. “Some debts can’t be paid with money. God knows I’ve tried.”

  “How so?” I sipped Tank’s expensive beer.

  He waved the question off. “That’s personal. It’s enough for you to know that Al is in big trouble. I hope you can help him, and I’ll pay you to try.” He lapsed into silence, tilted his glass for the last of the twelve-year-old, single-malt Scotch, then rattled the ice cubes.

  I turned the Pilsner glass in my hands while I gazed out the window again. One thing I’ll say for Tank: He stocks the best private bar in Port City. “You pay the freight and I’ll walk your dog.”

  He smirked. “Black people don’t own dogs.”

  “Tank, how many times I gotta tell ya? I’m the funny Mexican; you’re the studious African American CPA. Besides, you told me you owned a Border Collie when you were a kid.” I sipped my beer. “Sure, I’ll help your friend. What’s his problem?”

  “Al has so many problems I don’t know where to begin.” Tank shrugged. “To start, there’s Monty Moffett, otherwise known as ‘Monster.’"

  Despite me being a tough guy, that sent a frisson down my spine. “Al is involved with Monster Moffett?”

  “Yeah. Is that bad?”

  I nodded. “What do you know about Monster Moffett?”

  “Only what I read in the newspaper. Is he as bad as his nickname?”

  “Worse. Moffett is the biggest bookie and loan shark in Port City, both businesswise and physically. This guy is almost as big as you. Must be six-foot-five and outweighs you by fifty pounds. Of course, he’s mostly fat and you’re all muscle. But even so, he scares the heck out of most people.”

  “Does he scare you?”

  I shrugged. “Maybe he would if I had good sense, but I have more balls than brains.”

  “I would’ve said that you have balls instead of brains.”

  “You sure know how to hurt a guy. Especially a guy who is, uh, what’s that big word I learned? Intellectually challenged. You forget: I have copious brawn to go with my extraordinary balls.”

  “So you’ll help Al even with Monster Moffett in the picture?”

  “You forget: Under this business suit and tie I wear a red cape and a blue leotard with a big red S on it.”

  “I thought you only wore that when you went clubbing.”

  I grinned. “The bigger they are… Moffett is ruthless and sadistic, but his nasty temper makes up for it. I’d do the world a favor if I took him down a notch. I suppose Al owes him money?”

  “Yeah, and he hasn’t got two pennies to rub together. A couple weeks ago Moffett sent two wise guys to haul Al to someplace in the warehouse district. Moffett took a ball-peen hammer to Al’s left hand. Poor guy was in surgery for three hours. Over a hundred stitches and God knows how many steel pins. He’ll never shuffle a deck of cards again, that’s for sure.” Tank set down his glass and cracked his knuckles. “Last week Al came to my office with a cast up to his forearm. He told me every agonizing detail.”

  “If you want me to help him,” I asked, “why’d you wait until last night to call me?”

  “Frankly, I didn’t know what to do. I’ve bailed him out more times than I can count. It never works. You know that old definition of insanity…”

  “Doing the same thing over and over, thinking this time you’ll get different results. Yeah, another old joke I tell better than you.”

  Tank smiled. “Sometimes when you don’t know what to do, the best thing to do is nothing.”

  “That sounds more like a bumper sticker than an excuse.”

  “In my defense, Moffett did give him two weeks. I knew Al had another week before Moffett came after him.”

  “So you procrastinated.”

  Tank stared at his empty glass. “I’m not proud of it.”

  “What changed?” I asked. “Why did you wait, then call last night in a hurry to see me?”

  Tank walked over to the bar. “You ready for another?”

  I raised my empty glass. “Last one, I have to drive.”

  Tank opened the bar refrigerator, slid out another Amstel, and handed it to me. “If I give Al money to pay this loan, Moffett will increase his credit line.” He poured a little Scotch and slid a few ice cubes down the side of the glass. “He’s done that before. Every time Al gambles or cooks up another hare-brained scheme, he gets deeper in debt to Moffett. When it comes to borrowing money from a loan shark like Moffett, Al’s like an alcoholic who can’t stop drinking.”

  I tilted the Pilsner glass and poured the Amstel gently down the slope so as not to bruise it. “How much does Al owe Moffett?”

  “Two hundred thousand dollars.”

  Two hundred thousand dollars was petty cash for Tank, but the way he said it called for a whistle, so I whistled. “What does Al do for a living?”

  Tank swirled his drink, rattled the ice. “Anything and nothing. He’s full of grandiose schemes. He does an occasional drug deal, he gambles, and he’s been arrested twice for shoplifting. He tried to flip houses during the last real estate crash. Lost a bundle, of course.”

  “Al doesn’t sound like the type of guy you’d pick for a friend. In fact, he sounds like the polar opposite of conservative, uptight CPA Thomas Tyler.” I poured the remainder of my beer. “How’d you become friends with a man like that?”

  “We played football together for the UAC Falcons for two years. Al attended Carver High School here in the City where his mother teaches English and his father was head football coach. Al was a sophomore, a year ahead of me. When I showed up fresh off the farm from Florence, Alabama, he took me under his wing. He drove me to his house for a home-cooked meal.” Tank stared out the window, lost in the past. “I was bouncing around like a kid in a hall of mirrors. I’d never seen a city larger than Huntsville, Alabama, except for recruiting trips when I was in high school. Al showed me how things work at a big university in a big city.”

  “What went wrong with Al?” I asked. “How did he end up such a loser?”

  “It was sixteen years ago. Not relevant anymore.”

  “But he didn’t finish college, did he?”

  “Nope. Quit after he was kicked off the team in the spring semester of his junior year.”

  “Why’d he get kicked off?”

  “Not important now.”

  “Could be relevant. Sometimes things like that gnaw on you for years; they color everything you see in the world.”

  “Drop it, Chuck. It’s not important. Trust me on that.”

  Whenever someone tells me to trust them, it often means they don’t know what they’re talking about. I tried another tack. “So you two played
together for two seasons.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What happened to him after he got kicked off the team?”

  “He dropped out.”

  “Why?”

  “Not important now.”

  I shrugged; I would come back to the subject later. “Using my unsurpassed analytical mind, I surmise that, for whatever reason, Al’s life went downhill while yours skyrocketed. Consensus All-American your junior year, Bronko Nagurski Award for best defensive lineman in the known universe your senior year, and the UAC Falcons won the National Championship that year.”

  I pointed to the Falcons team picture on the wall. “And where was Al while all this glory was heaped on you?”

  “I lost track of him for a few years.”

  “But not for long, I’ll bet. You were a first round NFL draft choice with a multi-million-dollar contract. It was all over the sports pages. Al had to know about it. Stop me if I get this wrong.”

  “So far, you’re ninety percent right.”

  “Hurray for me.” I lifted my glass and toasted myself. “So Al shows up out of the blue to congratulate his old, but newly-rich friend. You feel guilty about your success—you’re rich; he’s poor. You’re a big football star; he got kicked off the team. How’m I doing so far?”

  “A hundred percent.”

  “Then Al plays the guilt card. He asks you to bail him out of some mischief. You help him out and one thing leads to another. Eventually it becomes a habit for you both. You’re a rich man, so why not? I get that. That about right?”

  “Yeah, pretty much.” Tank stared into his glass.

  I threw up my hands. “So why am I here? Why’d you call me last night?”

  “Something intervened.”