In It for the Money

by David Burnsworth

  While the women went to work on figuring out where the email could have been sent from, Blu and Crome delivered a copy of the picture to a professional photographer Blu used from time to time.

  Phineous Solomon had turned an old office in a run-down strip mall in North Charleston into his headquarters, as he called them. He covered the graveyard news shift and managed to sell a lot of his videos and pictures to the local news outlets, including Patricia Voyels.

  Except it had gotten harder in the last fifteen years for professional photographers as cell phones had acquired more advanced cameras and everyone had one.

  To change with the times, Phineous had added to his business the craft of photograph analysis. The same careful, trained eye he used to take pictures could also dissect an image to determine if it had been tampered with.

  Blu had called ahead and Phineous met them at the front door, holding it open for them to enter. He said, “Why I do declare, you two are a sight for sore eyes.”

  Phineous, thirty-five years old if Blu had to guess, had on his usual summer attire of a t-shirt, Bermuda shorts, and Chuck Taylor Converse high-tops. Also as usual, he looked sickly white. Even though he matched Blu’s and Crome’s six-three height, the kid probably didn’t weigh more than a buck-fifty.

  Blu said, “Thanks for seeing me so fast.”

  They entered the ramshackle office building, which smelled like dirty laundry and marijuana smoke. Dented four-drawer file cabinets lined the walls. A giant whiteboard hung behind a tattered desk with a new-looking Apple computer and some other pieces of equipment Blu could not identify.

  “Are you kidding?” Phineous brushed chin-length brown hair out of his blue eyes. “If it weren’t for the likes of you two, this job wouldn’t be near as much fun.”

  Facing the photographer, Blu said, “I haven’t had a job in a few months.”

  “And it’s been boring as hell here, let me tell you.” He gave them a smile.

  Crome held up an open palm. “Mickey Finn, how’s it hangin’?”

  Phineous gave them a goofy smile and did his best to be cool by slapping Crome some skin. “Good, Crome. Real good.”

  Blu handed over an envelope he’d carried in containing a copy of the picture plus a jump drive with the file. “Your rate still the same?”

  Phineous nodded. “For you, yeah. New customers pay a premium. And since you haven’t been around, all I’ve had’s been newbies.”

  “What if I told you this was for Patricia Voyels?”

  The younger man grinned. “I’d still charge the same rate. With one small adder.”

  “Lemme guess,” Crome said. “You want Harmony and Tess to pay in person.”

  “Wouldn’t you?” he asked.

  Blu didn’t have the heart to tell the kid they’d been at his house the night before. “How much time do you need?”

  “Gimme a few hours. It’ll give me time to do some analysis.”

  Blu nodded. “You got it.”

  As he and Crome were leaving, Phineous said, “Don’t forget about Harmony and Tess.”

  Crome chuckled.

  Blu said, “Top of my list.”

  The women were going to love this one.

  As he drove, Blu thought about the situation and decided he didn’t like it at all.

  As if reading his mind, Crome said, “Something’s not right about this.”

  “Yep.”

  “I mean,” Crome said, “the kid might be dead, but we don’t know that for sure. But at least no one’s shooting at us right now. I didn’t think we were going to get out of Mexico alive.”

  “Me neither.”

  “How did we get out of Mexico alive?”

  Of course Chrome knew the answer to his own question.

  Blu humored him. “By cutting a deal with Raul.” An idea hit him. “That’s it.”

  “What’s it?”

  “Maybe the kid is trying to cut ties. Make people think he’s dead.”

  Crome said, “I’m kind of thinking I’d sure like the little waste-of-life to be dead.”

  “Apparently, you aren’t the only one.”

  Blu’s phone rang. It was Phineous. He put the photographer on speaker.

  Phineous said, “The pic’s not doctored that I can tell.”

  “Okay,” Blu said. “Thanks for looking at it.”

  “There’s something else, though.”

  “What’s that?” Blu asked.

  “I’ve seen a lot of crime scenes. And taken pictures of a lot of dead bodies. This is just an opinion, but when I zoomed in to check out the injuries on the vic, they look to me like a makeup job. Brushed on, you know?”

  “What I wanted to hear,” Blu said.

  Phineous said, “Don’t forget about Harmony and Tess.”

  Blu ended the call without responding and looked at Crome.

  Crome said, “So either the kid’s faking his own death or someone else is making him.”

  “My guess is the kid’s trying to get mom off his back.”

  He called Tess.

  She said, “There’s no way to track the IP address.”

  “Just great.”

  “But,” she said, “based on his credit card charges, he frequented a coffee bar in North Charleston.”

  “When was the last time?”

  “Two weeks ago.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Thursday, noon

  Blu parked in the lot of an independent coffee bar called Grind It Out in a decent strip mall not too far from a large shopping center.

  Crome chose to stay outside and vape while Blu entered.

  People sat on mismatched couches and chairs, their necks hunched over their phone screens, all the while surrounded by dark green walls covered with paintings for sale. Of the ones Blu was close enough to see, none had been signed as being painted by Jeremy Rhodes.

  A large glass counter in front of the coffee machines displayed baked goods.

  Blu read all the faces in the room and didn’t see one matching the picture of his client’s son.

  He approached the counter and ordered two large coffees to go from a twenty-something woman with tats up both arms and an elaborate ink necklace.

  She poured the coffees into paper cups and set them in front of him. “Cream and sugar’s behind you. So are the lids.”

  Blu pulled out the photocopy of the DMV picture of Jeremy. “You ever seen this guy here before?”

  She looked at him, then at the picture.

  He thought he saw a hint of recognition in her expression, but when she looked back up at him, her face had no tell.

  She said, “Nope. What’s he done?”

  Blu smiled. “Hasn’t called his mother. She’s worried about him.”

  “Yeah, right,” she said. “Are you a cop?”

  Blu showed her his PI badge. “Private.”

  She smiled. “That’s you, all right. But how do I know it’s real?”

  Smart girl. “You can look me up on the South Carolina government site if you want.”

  She pulled out her phone, tapped, and read. “Looks legit.”

  “Anyone else here I can ask about the photo?”

  “No need,” she said. “I’ve seen him here.”

  “How long ago?”

  “Yesterday.”

  When the death photo was sent.

  Blu handed her a business card. “If he comes in again, I’ll give you a hundred bucks if you’ll call me.”

  She looked at the card. “Not sure I want to get involved.”

  “Your choice,” Blu said. “Thanks for your help.”

  He walked outside with the coffees and stood beside Crome.

  Crome accepted a coffee. “Want me to stake it out?”

  “I offered the g
irl with all the tattoos behind the counter a hundred bucks to call if he shows up. Hopefully she will.”

  “Ya never know.” Crome put his vaporizer in his pocket and headed for the door to the coffee shop with his coffee. “Pick me up later.”

  The nice thing about coffee shops these days was they were just like almost anywhere else. College kids and hippies went there. Bikers too. Even real bikers like Crome.

  Blu got in his truck and called Tess.

  She said, “You find the place?”

  “Yes, and he was here yesterday. I’m pretty sure the kid’s still alive.”

  “We’ve got to stake the place out,” she said.

  “Crome’s already on it, just in case my other plan backfires.”

  “What other plan?” she asked.

  “The one where I offer one of the baristas a hundred bucks to drop the dime on our missing target.”

  “Think she’ll tip him off?”

  Blu thought about it. “She said she didn’t want to be involved. My read is she’ll call. A hundred bucks for a phone call is a little too easy to pass up. Unless she likes the kid. Then we’re screwed.”

  “We?”

  “Okay, I’m screwed. And you and Harmony have to work that much harder to get us back on track.”

  “How much more do you want? We had to cash in a lot of favors to track down the coffee shop.”

  “Um,” he said.

  “Spill it.”

  “I had Phineous go over the death photo. He had a special payment request.”

  She said, “Let me spell it out for you, Blu. No way.”

  “It’s not what you think,” Blu said, feeling the need to backtrack. “You and Harmony deliver the payment. That’s all he wants.”

  “Maybe that’s all he told you he wants.”

  She had him there.

  There was a pause. Finally, she said, “And what do I get in return?”

  “What do you want?”

  “The exclusive on your trip to Mexico.”

  “No way.”

  “Then I guess Phineous will be heartbroken.”

  Blu said, “I can’t talk about Mexico. And believe me, you do not want those people pissed off and zeroing in on you.”

  “You know,” she said, “I think I like my day job better than yours.”

  There were a lot of responses he could have made to her statement, most of them sarcastic and condescending. He chose the high ground. “There are times when I would agree with you.”

  “Which times do you get to like it?”

  The times when he’s busting heads, taking down evil, and setting people up. He said, “When I show results.”

  “You could so use Harmony and me on your team.”

  Good God, he thought. Crome wouldn’t be able to focus on anything other than their rear ends.

  Blu asked, “Are you offering your services?”

  “Not really. We wouldn’t want to be a distraction for you.”

  Pithy little tease. “Thanks a lot.”

  “Don’t mention it. I’ll call you back if we find anything else.”

  “Do that.” He ended the call.

  Thursday, two p.m.

  With Crome staking out the coffee shop, and Harmony and Tess doing more research, Blu found himself with a few free minutes and hit the gym. It was time to clear his head of distractions and focus on the problem at hand: “Why does the kid want mommy to think he’s dead? And why’s he hiding in the first place?”

  With Heath and Roger deep into a training session, Blu worked out on his own.

  Halfway through a speedbag routine, an answer became crystal clear in his mind. “Because he knows she sent someone looking for him.”

  So the next question was, “How does he know?”

  And the answer was, “Because someone told him.” It made sense. Jeremy couldn’t have been tailing his mother. Not to Blu’s house the first time she and her driver came. And the kid wouldn’t be staking out her home, watching from behind the bushes or something. With his purple hair and piercings, he’d stand out a bit. And the neighbors would have called the police on him.

  If someone told him, then who? Had to be someone close to Cynthia.

  Heath interrupted Blu’s thoughts when he yelled, “Hammer-time!”

  “What’s up, Heath?”

  They chest-bumped.

  Heath said, “What’s up? Are you kidding me? You took out those three dudes. I mean took them out. Man, I thought you only wanted to talk. But they got carried out on stretchers.”

  “Sorry,” Blu said. “I hope it didn’t jam you up.”

  Heath smiled big. “No one filed any charges. Hell, the place is illegal anyway. Besides, my boss hated the special arrangements we had to make for the ice queen. Now it looks like we don’t have to make ’em anymore. She surely ain’t comin’ back. Ha!”

  “Still,” Blu said, “I owe you.”

  “All in a night’s work,” Heath said.

  Blu finished his workout and called Cynthia.

  Chapter Twenty

  Cynthia Rhodes answered the call.

  Blu said, “I can’t prove it, but I’m pretty sure the picture’s staged.”

  “Jeremy isn’t dead?”

  “Like I said, I can’t prove it.” He told her what he’d found out about the photograph being real but appearing to be staged, and about Jeremy being sighted at the coffee shop.

  “That gives me hope, Mr. Carraway.”

  “I’ll keep looking,” he said. “If you get any more emails, let me know immediately.”

  She said, “Of course.”

  It was really a long shot. Jeremy wanted her to think he was dead. Still, Blu needed to cover all the bases.

  “One more thing.” This was the tricky part. “I think someone tipped Jeremy off you hired me to look for him.”

  “Yes?”

  “It might be someone close to you. Can you think of anyone you have told about me who might be sympathetic to your son?”

  After a pause, she said, “Mr. Carraway, my staff is loyal to me. I’m not sure how they would even know how to contact my son.”

  She had a point.

  Thursday, four p.m.

  Jeremy Rhodes parked his van at the local Walmart in a spot far enough from the door so as not to be noticed, but close enough to mix in with the other cars. Because of the summer heat, he kept the engine idling and the air on as he crawled behind the seats and sat on the air mattress doubling as his bed. He was currently between girlfriends and friend’s couches. He opened a sack from McDonald’s and ate his dinner, thinking about how sad his mother probably was since he’d sent her his dead picture. It made him laugh a little, which was only a side benefit. The real reason for everything was to get her off his back.

  The drugs were gone, but he still had some of the cash left—what he hadn’t donated to the cause. At the rate he was going, he wouldn’t have to dip into his trust fund again for a while. But only as long as he stayed clean. Another bender with the girls and he’d blow his whole stash. Had to watch that.

  He munched on a Quarter Pounder with cheese and washed it down with a Dr Pepper, thinking about the girls. Man, what a weekend. Up to his eyeballs in breasts and cocaine. Any other occasion they wouldn’t have given him the time of day. But show up with a big bag of coke and he had himself a good time.

  The problem was they snorted up the coke like high-powered vacuum cleaners, and when there wasn’t any left, he suddenly had to leave before the landlord showed up. That might have been a story they fed him. He had a hunch they’d squirreled away quite a bit of it for later. But at the moment, he didn’t care. He’d been coming down hard off the high and needed to sleep it off anyway, so he came back to the van and crashed.

  Now, though, he was starting to
itch for another party.

  The first one fell in his lap. The slob at the club left without his briefcase. The guy was just asking for it to be stolen. The shocker was the cash and stash inside it. Jeremy had never seen so much white powder in one sitting. His trust fund kept his habits satiated, but just barely. If his mother’d ever found out the truth, she’d have him locked up somewhere.

  The time had finally come for him to break away from dear old mom. He was sick and tired of her using the trust fund to control him. She would never give that up. And the way she’d set it up, he would never be out from under her. Finding that case was an omen for him.

  And then the girls bagged all the powder.

  He was due for some more luck.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Thursday, four p.m.

  After a few hours and no sign of Jeremy Rhodes, Blu picked up Crome from the coffee shop.

  Crome said, “Where to now?”

  “I’m going to drop you off at the house to get your bike. I think both of us need to be mobile.”

  “Where’m I going after that?”

  A good question. Blu didn’t have a good answer just yet. He said, “I’d say you can hang out with Harmony and Tess, but I’m thinking that wouldn’t do anybody any good.”

  “It would do me some good,” Crome said.

  “Sorry,” Blu said, “I meant it wouldn’t do anybody else any good.”

  “That’s better. How about if I go hang out with Patricia?”

  “Your choice,” Blu said. “She’s wise enough to shoot you in the balls.”

  And she was. Harmony and Tess would string a man along until he either did something stupid and went to jail or went crazy. Patricia wouldn’t put up with much before she pulled out the thirty-two Ruger she’d once showed Blu and took care of business.

  On the way back to his island paradise, Blu received two phone calls. The first was from Harmony. She had something else she wanted to show them. The second was from a woman who said she knew something about Jeremy Rhodes and knew Blu was looking for him.

  As he pulled to a stop beside Crome’s motorcycle, he said, “And just like that we’ve got two things. I guess we divide and conquer.”