Annie on the Lam: A Christmas Caper

by Jennifer Archer

  Annie winced. She couldn’t leave him to fend for himself. The poor guy was in this mess because of her. And she knew Harry. The man believed in doing things in a big way, in getting it “right” the first time and making an impression. This behemoth he had hired to do his dirty work was undoubtedly a pro at his job, someone with a solid background in beating the crap out of people…or worse.

  Annie blinked until her eyes better adjusted to the darkness, tightened her grip on the case handle and took a deep breath. She caught sight of her Jimmy Choo shoe sticking out from under the couch. Rushing over, she picked it up with her free hand, then turned and ran toward the scuffling men. She aimed the spiked heel and started hammering away at Sasquatch’s shoulders. “Stop it! Let him go! You’ll kill him.”

  “You little—” He reached back a flailing arm and grabbed at her.

  “Ow!” the cab driver shouted. “You’re hitting me!”

  It took a moment for Annie to realize the driver was talking to her. She tossed the red heel aside as both men struggled to their feet, bent over, still swinging at each other.

  Annie ran to the end table and grabbed the lead crystal angel, darted back to the men, reluctantly set down the briefcase. Lifting the heavy angel, she swung it hard, hitting the intruder across the back of his head.

  He rose to full height, tottered.

  Using both hands, Annie heaved the angel over her head, screamed like a banshee and brought it down, hitting him again.

  The man fell forward into the cabbie and the cabbie fell against the door, slamming it shut.

  “Run!” he shouted. “Go!”

  Dropping the angel and grabbing the briefcase again, Annie bolted toward the back window that led to the fire escape. Whimpers of panic worked their way up her throat, her breath emerged in strangled bursts, her heart hammered. The purse strap had twisted around her neck and the bag banged against her bottom with each step she took. Something crashed behind her but she didn’t look back. She reached the window, fumbled with the latch.

  A sharp thump sounded. The glass above her fingers shattered. The pungent scent of gunpowder burned her lungs. Annie cried out and ducked, feeling as if her heart had exploded along with the windowpane. She reached for the latch again, twisted, shoved the shattered window up with one arm. She climbed over the sill and onto the fire escape, sucking in great gulps of fresh cold air.

  The cab driver climbed through the window and stood beside her. He looked at the ground two stories below, then met her gaze.

  Annie stared into his eyes for half a heartbeat, then shifted to peer at the snowy asphalt below. She turned to him, shook her head, no. She didn’t survive Sasquatch to die jumping from a building. But she knew he was right; they couldn’t risk taking the stairs. There wasn’t enough time.

  Taking hold of the hand he jammed toward her and hugging the briefcase with her opposite arm, she squeezed her eyes shut, gritted her teeth and they jumped.

  “Ohmi—!”

  The fall sucked the breath from her lungs. The impact on landing slammed her teeth together. She lay on her side, dazed, with Harry’s briefcase wedged between her hip and the snow-packed ground and the cab driver on top of her.

  Wheezing from exertion, he pushed to his knees, grabbed her hand again and pulled her up. “Let’s go.”

  Annie seized the briefcase from the ground and ran. Her right shoulder and hip throbbed. She tasted blood on her lip.

  When they reached the cab, the driver unlocked the closest door on the front passenger side, ducked in and slid across to the wheel.

  Annie dove in beside him. “I don’t even know your name,” she panted.

  “Joe.” He shoved the key into the ignition. “Joe Brady.”

  She slammed the door and slouched down in the seat as the cab shot away from the curb on screeching tires. “I’m Anne Macy.”

  “Anne, huh?” He grinned. “Well, Anne, congratulations. You win the award for my most interesting ride of the day.”

  HARRY LANDAU PUNCHED IN a number on his office phone and waited through the following six rings. Puffing his slim cigar, he stared out the window at his penthouse-floor view of the frosty city below. He had worked long and hard for his piece of that view. Worked and planned, wheeled and dealed, back-slapped and brown-nosed and cheated his way up, floor-by-floor to his own private perch above the Big Apple. No way would he lose it at the hands of some bitch on a do-gooder mission.

  “What took you so damn long?” he snapped when he finally got an answer.

  “It’s the middle of the night. I was—”

  “Never mind. We’ve got problems. He let her get away with the case.”

  The man cursed. “How? She’s a woman, for pity’s sake. I don’t know many men he doesn’t outweigh by at least a hundred pounds.”

  “He said she bit him and took to his back with what felt like a ball-peen hammer.”

  “A hammer…Sheesh.”

  “Then she slugged him with an angel. Twice.”

  “An angel?”

  “Some fancy ornament thing. Gave him a freakin’ concussion.” Harry huffed a humorless laugh and muttered, “Gettin’ hit by an angel must hurt like the devil.”

  The man chuckled, but the sound was more nervous than amused. “Maybe you should’ve hired her as a bodyguard instead of a waitress.”

  Harry thought a minute, then said, “I’ll have to call Willis.”

  The man at the other end of the line sighed noisily. “Can’t you find someone else? Someone who isn’t involved? If Willis gets caught and talks, the whole line of dominoes’ll topple.”

  “We need him. The bitch had help. Some guy must’ve heard the scuffle. He came in from the hallway and she took off with him in a cab. The plates match the one she left here in.” Harry recited the numbers.

  “You’ll have Willis do a trace, right?”

  “Yeah. How long will somethin’ like that take?”

  “Not long.”

  “Good. Don’t be making any trips. I’ll be in touch.”

  Harry hung up, dreading what would happen if his uncle found out about this, determined not to let that happen. He reached across his desk for Anne Macy’s billfold, then opened it. Taking another hit off his cigar, he stared at the driver’s license photo inside. Annabelle Macy, it read. Savannah, Georgia. Harry fluttered his eyelashes and in a high-pitched, mocking voice drawled, “Well, I do declare.” Then he blew a smoke ring into the dark and growled, “You’re in over your head, lady. And Harry’s gonna make sure you drown.”

  CHAPTER 5

  The streets had started to ice over. Traffic moved at a slower pace. A thick mist filled the air as snowflakes swirled, then settled on the ground, wrapping the city in a soft blanket of white. Holiday lights winked through the frosty haze of the wee morning hours, creating a peaceful scene worthy of a Christmas card.

  Joe felt anything put peaceful. Damn radio. All he got was static when he tried to get through to dispatch. On top of that, his cell phone was dead.

  The meandering route he’d chosen might take a while longer, but if it threw off the bruiser they’d managed to escape, he didn’t mind the lost time. He kept one eye on the road, the other on the rearview mirror, hoping they weren’t being followed.

  Wincing, he touched the tender spot beneath his left eye. Maybe it was Anne Macy he should be trying to escape. She was the one who’d given him the shiner, not that guy who’d broken in. “That fancy shoe of yours should be registered as a deadly weapon, Anne,” he muttered.

  “Sorry. I was trying to help.”

  Anne. Hmph. The corner of Joe’s mouth twitched. The newspaper said Annabelle. Her daddy called her Annie. Each name conjured a different image; he wondered which one was the right fit. “Did you use the shoe to knock the guy out, too?”

  “No, a lead crystal angel.”

  Joe chuckled. “There’s some kind of justice in that.”

  She sat low in the seat beside him, shivering so violently he heard her teeth
chattering, both arms wrapped around that damn briefcase. He was through wondering what was inside. He wanted answers. He didn’t need any more convincing that whatever she’d pulled at Landau’s tonight had not been just some mischievous prank. Harry Landau was after her in a big way. The man meant business. And Landau’s business dealings usually included his uncle Frank. Which, for Joe, was both good news and bad. The good being that, if he could get his hands on the briefcase, he might get something on Reno, too. The bad being that, just as he had feared when he took this job, he had wound up in the role of protector.

  His stomach knotted as a memory flashed through his mind. Emma Billings curled up on her bed, trembling and bleeding, terrified to silence, refusing to tell him who had roughed her up. Joe had lived with that grim image every single day of the past year.

  He turned another corner, tapped the brake gingerly to avoid skidding sideways across the icy road. As soon as Anne Macy was safely at the police station, he’d call her father; he refused to be responsible for her safety a second longer than necessary. Then he’d get with the chief and his ex-partner, Steve O’Malley, and they would check out the contents of Landau’s briefcase and see just what the woman had taken to cause so much commotion.

  He glanced across at her. “Hold on. Almost there.”

  “Where?”

  “The police station.”

  She sat up. “I told you I don’t want to go to the police.”

  “Why not?” He’d had just about enough of her stubborn attitude. “You might think this is some kind of amusing little game but those bullet casings on the floor back at your apartment say otherwise. You’re in some deep shit, and I’ve been dragged right smack in the stinkin’ middle of it with you.” He waited for a response. Nothing. “How about you tell me what’s going on? I think I deserve that much. Who was that guy?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m sure Harry Landau sent him.”

  “What did you do to piss your boss off, anyway?” He waited a beat. “What’s in that briefcase?”

  Frowning and nibbling her lip, she stared straight ahead out the windshield. “I’m sorry you got messed up in this.” Her face contorted as she turned and looked at his puffy eye. “I’m sorry you got hurt.”

  Joe stopped at an intersection and rotated his shoulders. Now, in addition to a headache, a cramp in his neck, a throbbing knee and a swollen eye, he had a pain in his back from jumping off the fire escape, and a pain in the ass sitting beside him. A great-looking pain, maybe, but annoying as hell nonetheless. “Don’t change the subject. You either tell me what’s in that briefcase or I’m dragging your butt in to talk to the cops.”

  “Please don’t. I’m not sure who I can trust in there.”

  Only a little while ago he’d admired her for not trusting just anybody, but the woman was going overboard now. The light turned green and Joe continued on, driving slowly on the slick pavement. “You can’t trust the police? Come on. Cut the drama, Sweet Tea. It’s not necessary anymore. Your little self-concocted adventure has turned into the real thing.”

  She glared at him. “My name is Anne.”

  “Are you sure?” He arched an eyebrow and said sarcastically, “Or is ‘Anne Macy’ really your cover?”

  “You think this is funny?”

  “Oh, yeah. Where I come from, getting beat up by three hundred pounds of solid muscle is freakin’ hilarious. Wait’ll I tell the guys.” He reached across and thumped the case. “What’ve you got there?”

  “If I tell you and you tell the police…” She drew her lower lip between her teeth, her brow wrinkling. “I think at least one of them might be in on this.”

  Caught off guard, Joe frowned and said, “Define this.”

  As if gathering courage, she sighed once, then again. “I took some files from Harry Landau’s office tonight. He keeps it locked, but during the party…” She cleared her throat. “He tried to force himself on me and I slipped the keys from his pocket.” Tossing her hair back, she looked straight at him, as if daring him to make a smart-ass comment, as if she was damned pleased with herself.

  The woman might’ve led a sheltered life like her father had told him, but she was far from naïve.

  “I had planned to wait until I could tap into his computer files, too, but I haven’t had any luck getting his sister to slip up with the password. Lacy also works for Harry. She’s a nice woman, but she’s also one pea short of a pod. She thinks she can’t get by without her brother’s help, and he takes advantage of that by slapping her around and making threats when he thinks no one is watching.”

  When she hesitated, Joe said, “Go on.”

  “Um, at the party…things just got out of hand so fast and when he…when he…” She turned away. “Well, I knew there was no way I was going back to work for that lowlife one more day, so I took what I could get and ran.”

  “Okay…” Joe gripped the steering wheel tighter. “And just what do you expect to find in those files?”

  “Proof he’s laundering drug money through the restaurant.”

  His pulse kicked up a notch. “Drug money?”

  She nodded. “I’m pretty sure the figures from the daily register reports won’t match his bank deposits.”

  He tried not to let the hopeful excitement he felt show in his expression. “If that’s true, you think it’ll be that simple to catch?” Joe shook his head. “If the man’s laundering money and he has half a brain, you can bet he doctored the reports to cover his tracks.”

  “That’s why I’ve been keeping my own set of records. For a while now, I’ve been writing down the daily intake figures and any cash payouts I know about, at least on the nights I work.”

  If she was making this up, she was a very good actress. “Why do you think he’s dealing drugs?”

  “I don’t think it, I know it.” She scooted around in the seat to face him, her eyes burning with determination. “Now I just have to prove it.”

  “And you know this because…?”

  “A couple of weeks back, I overheard a conversation between Harry and two men. I think they were his partners—you know, his suppliers. I was hiding in his office closet and—”

  “His closet?” Joe blurted a laugh.

  “One of the men told Harry he’d had some trouble putting the pound together but that Harry’s customer would definitely be satisfied with what he finally came up with. Those were the words he used. Putting the pound together.”

  “Cocaine,” Joe murmured.

  “That’s what I thought, too. Later that night, a man came in to Landau’s to eat and he sat at one of my tables. Harry pulled me aside and told me to give him the royal treatment. Halfway through the meal, Harry joined him. When they finished, Harry asked the guy back to his office for a private nightcap.”

  “Was that unusual?”

  “It doesn’t happen often. Two other times that I can recall since I’ve worked there. I never thought anything about it until I overheard that conversation. So, as I said, I started paying closer attention and keeping my own records.” She reached into her purse and pulled out a small leather book.

  “Why is it so important to you to catch Harry Landau?”

  She nibbled her lip again, glanced away from him, then back. “He’s a drug dealer. Filth.”

  The painful emotions that flickered in her eyes stirred more curiosity in Joe. He recalled what Ed Simms had said about her mother driving Frank Reno’s car into the river with Reno sitting beside her. Anne Macy would’ve been a kid when her mother died. He had a feeling she’d done her homework and discovered the family and business connections between Landau and Reno. Undoubtedly she knew Reno was a co-owner of the restaurant. Was she out to avenge her mother? Is that what this was all about?

  “I told Lacy I’d seen how Harry treated her, that I’d heard him threaten her if she didn’t keep quiet,” Annie continued. “I told her I’d help her. She broke down, but she was too afraid of him to tell me anything except that he was really mad at he
r about something. I knew she was supposed to meet him in his office before her shift started. Which is how I ended up in his closet.”

  “I’m not sure I understand the connection.”

  Shivering, Annie huddled deeper into Harry Landau’s coat. “I didn’t want Lacy to have to face his temper alone, so I came up with a reason I needed to talk to him and went ahead of her. He wasn’t there, so I waited. I heard someone coming and peeked into the hall. Harry, Lacy and two men were headed my way. So I panicked and got in the closet.”

  Joe stared out at the snowy road. Old man Milford was right. She was impulsive. Reckless, too. If Harry was anything like his uncle, he wouldn’t think twice about shooting her for spying on him. “So you heard what you heard and decided to take matters into your own hands and play detective instead of going to the cops with it. And now if the evidence you think is in that case isn’t, you might be the one who ends up doing jail time instead of your boss. Did you think about that before you broke into his office?”

  “No, because I’m positive the evidence is here. I just have to figure it out.”

  He decided not to inform her that even if she did find dirt on Landau, she might still be in trouble with the law for breaking into his office and stealing his files. In fact, he wouldn’t doubt it if Landau’s attorney found a way to use what she did to have charges dropped against his client. Snakes had a sneaky way of slithering out of tight spots. But Joe would save that piece of information for a time when Anne Macy wasn’t already shaking.

  He spotted the police station ahead. “You still haven’t told me why you suspect the cops are involved.”

  She blinked at him. “Those men in Harry’s office?”

  Joe nodded.

  “They were police officers.”

  His pulse rate accelerated. “How do you know?”

  “Lacy said so.”