However, the florist said if I wanted, I could just swing by and pick the bouquet up myself. That way, I’d know for sure that it would get there on time. And they’d actually credit me back the delivery charge. What a deal. So I made a b.s. excuse and told Toni if she'd drive herself, she didn't need to be in until nine. Luckily, she bought it and I took off by myself, fighting morning commuter traffic all the way over to Lake City, waited in line with a bunch of guys who’d also selected the “deliver it yourself” option, then fought traffic the other way all the way back to the office.
Doc heard me enter and walked into the lobby to see who it was. “Hey, those are nice, dude.”
“Thanks. You remember to take care of Pri? If not, I’ve got a nice little florist shop I can recommend to you.”
He nodded. “That’s okay. I had mine delivered.”
I looked at him for a second. “Course you did.”
“So where you gonna put ’em?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I thought I’d just set ’em on her desk.”
“Nah,” he said. “Don’t do that. You need to set ’em out here on the reception desk. That way, she’ll see ’em right when she walks in. Make a good impression.”
“Hmm. Good idea.” I walked over to the desk and set the bouquet down, then maneuvered it so that the card showed. I stepped back to admire my work, just like Toni’d be doing soon when she stepped through the front door. I’m not one of those guys who goes in for the big, showy bouquets. I think the elegant arrangements, an artful mix of lilies and daisies—something along those lines, anyway—says a lot. I don’t think you need a huge vase of two dozen roses to get the point across. My bouquet looked nice—I was sure Toni’d like it.
“Looks good,” Doc said. “This way, she’ll think you had them delivered.”
“Yeah!” I said, cheerily.
The door opened behind me, and I stepped to the side, thinking it was Toni. When I turned, though, all I saw was an enormous bundle of pink and yellow roses walking through the front door. There were so many flowers, I couldn’t see the face of the delivery person providing the propulsion. It looked like we were being invaded by a rosebush with legs. Four or five bushes, actually. I did see an arm wrapped around the roses to sort of bundle them up and protect them just before they stepped through the doorway.
Once inside, the delivery girl lowered the bouquet so that she could see over the top. “Hi! I have a delivery for a Ms. Antoinette Blair.”
“You damn sure do,” Doc muttered.
“Antoinette Blair?” I said, mind racing, wondering who they were from (for just a second), then starting to consider the ramifications.
“Yeah. Is this the right place?”
“Uh … yeah,” I said, nodding slowly.
“Good. Can I set ’em down somewhere? They’re kind of heavy.”
“Oh—sorry. Just set ’em on the desk there.”
“I don’t know,” Doc said. “You think it’ll hold the weight?”
I gave him a quick, nasty glance and saw him grinning at the little drama occurring right before his eyes.
The delivery girl spun the arrangement around so that the card was at the back. “There!” she said happily, standing back and looking at the display. “Wow. Somebody must be really special.”
I nodded slowly. “So it would appear.”
She admired the bouquet for a second more, then she gave her hands a little clap. “Well, got a lot more stops. Happy Valentine’s Day, gentlemen.” She turned, and as she was walked out the door, Kenny walked in.
“Holy hell!” he said when he entered, seeing the barrage of pink and yellow flowers.
“You noticed,” Doc said, deadpan.
“Hell yeah! Can’t miss those.” He smiled. “Well done, boss. That’s bigger than the bouquet I sent Meghan, and I thought that one was huge.”
“Isn’t it nice?” Doc said, still smiling like an idiot. I stared at him. Clearly, I was going to have to have a word with my larger friend.
“Yeah, they’re—”
I raised my hand. “Enough.”
Kenny looked at Doc, then at me, then back. “What’s going on?”
“See those flowers?” Doc said.
Kenny shrugged. “Of course. They’re awesome.”
Doc nodded. “Exactly. See the other bouquet beside ’em?”
Kenny looked puzzled for a second, then peered around the enormous vase. “Oh, yeah!” he said. “I didn’t notice ’em there alongside that other bunch.” He nodded. “They’re cute.”
Doc pointed to my bouquet, then he pointed to me and nodded. Next, he pointed to the big bouquet and then to me again, making an X with his index finger and shaking his head.
Kenny stared at him, momentarily confused. Then, his eyes opened wide. “No shit?”
Doc nodded, fighting to keep a straight face.
Kenny turned back to the bouquet. “Then who the hell …” and the answer hit him. “Her ‘husband’?”
Doc nodded.
“Maybe we should check the card,” Kenny said. “Just to be sure.” He walked over to the bouquet.
“Wait!” I said. I hadn’t thought of this (hadn’t had time to, actually), but now that the issue was on the table, so to speak, I was suddenly struck by questions of propriety. I mean, if Maroni and I were competing suitors, then it would definitely not be cool to read the card. It would have been intruding in Toni’s private thing. On the other hand, if Maroni was a stalker, then that meant he was basically just another case—a potential bad guy. He deserved no privacy points, and Toni would certainly understand the need for us to examine the evidence, as it were.
Still, I was uncertain.
“Well?” Kenny asked, waiting for my answer.
“I’m thinking,” I said.
“Well, you should know that just before I walked through the door, I saw Toni pulling into the parking lot. I figure you’ve got about ten, maybe twenty seconds before she steps through the door. If you want to know in advance what the card says, now’s your chance.” He looked at the card, without touching it. “Look here,” he added. “It’s not even sealed.”
Finally, I decided. I shook my head. “Leave it alone.”
He smiled and then nodded. “Okay. But can I make a suggestion?”
I shrugged. “Sure.” Whatever it was, I didn’t have to follow it.
“Why don’t you just swap the cards?”
That did it for Doc. He busted out laughing again just as the front door opened and Toni emerged.
She must have thought we were idiots. I stood there, a little red-faced. Kenny and Doc tried to compose themselves. She looked from one of us to the next. “What?” she said. Then her eyes were drawn to the roses. She took a step toward them, smiling. She kind of bit her lower lip a little, then she turned and gave me a shiver-down-my-spine sexy look that honestly made it hard to stand. Then she turned and walked into her office and closed the door.
Kenny and Doc watched her the whole way. When her door closed, the fools both went into spasms.
* * * *
“None of you are going to want to hear this,” I said, a half hour later in the conference room. “But based on recent events, we’re going to the buddy system for the time being, effective right away.”
We’ve only had to use the buddy system once before and, based on that, I expected a little kickback now, at least some moaning and groaning. Instead, it was quiet. I turned to Doc. “You okay with that?”
He nodded. “Yeah.” His voice held no hesitation. This alone told me he recognized the seriousness of the situation. He pointed to Kenny. “Little dude here is going to have to come stay with me and Pri.”
I looked at Kenny, fully expecting him to complain. He didn’t—he simply nodded.
“Has there been a development I’ve missed?” Richard asked. Richard Taylor's a tall, white-haired seventy-something-year-old with bright blue eyes and a quick smile. After serving twenty-eight years on the Seattle PD and
rising to the rank of lieutenant, he retired in 1988 and started Taylor Investigations. Twenty years later, he was slowing down a little, having fun doing guest lectures at the University of Washington where, in the fall of 2007, he’d met a couple of enthusiastic criminal justice students—Toni and me. A few months later, Richard and I made a deal, and he sold me his company. A couple months after that, we changed the name to Logan Private Investigations. Although he’s not technically an employee (he works his own hours now and receives no salary), Richard still loves the detective business. He’s been involved in nearly every major case we’ve worked. If he’s in town, he shows up nearly every day, and he rarely fails to make a meeting. We get the benefit of his nearly fifty years of law enforcement wisdom in exchange for simply providing him an office and a desk. He’s happy; we’re happy.
I nodded. “Yes. Two words: Pavel Laskin. First, Laskin’s still the number-one suspect in the Markovic murder, even though Inez says he has an alibi. Second, when we bumped into him last week, he basically said we’d meet again. Then last night at the park, he was giving us a serious dose of stinkeye. He’s probably getting tired of seeing us hanging around his operation. And Miguel figures that he’s going to get more and more pissed about it and, sooner or later, he’s going to lash out at what he figures to be the source. Then, to top it off, last night I woke up to find someone was on our balcony at our apartment. We went outside, but they’d already left.”
“No shit?” Doc said.
I nodded.
“Well, I guess that would do it, then,” Richard said. “I don’t believe Laskin has any reason to even know who I am, but then again, it doesn’t pay to underestimate people like him. I’m sure I can get Bobby R. to come stay with us for a few days.” He smiled. “He’ll think it’s a vacation. Besides, I’ve been meaning to paint the den anyway, and Bobby’s a good painter, given proper amounts of beer.” Bobby Rutherford is Richard’s old partner from his SPD days. “What about the clients? Are they in danger, too?”
I nodded. “It’s possible. Toni and I are going to talk to Mike and Sylvia right after our meeting here.” I looked around. “Everybody okay, then?”
No one objected, so I said, “Good. So be it. Hopefully, it’ll all be over soon.”
“How long, do you think?” Toni asked.
“Good question. Probably until Laskin makes a move on us, or until SPD makes another move on him. Something’s going to give.”
* * * *
“He was at your apartment last night?” Mike said, eyes wide open. “On your balcony?”
I shrugged. “I’m not sure. Someone was. But I could only see the size of the person through the sheers, not the features. Whoever it was, he was big. But I can’t be sure it was Laskin.”
“Well damn, Danny,” Mike said. “How many people are pissed off enough at you to be peeking through your bedroom window in the middle of the night?”
I didn’t say it out loud, but the real answer was two that I know of: Pavel Laskin because he was a pissed-off, mean-as-a-snake sociopath, and Rico Maroni, for far different, creepier reasons. I’d been through this in my own mind last night and this morning, and I’d come to the conclusion that it couldn’t have been Maroni: the guy I saw on the patio, even silhouetted through the sheers, was way bigger than Maroni. I don’t know if he was Laskin-big—he may have been. But I’m 90 percent confident that he was too big for Maroni. I looked at Mike. “Only one that counts.”
Mike looked nervously at Sylvia, then back to me.
“Look,” I said. “Laskin seems to be fixated on us at the moment, and that’s okay—we can deal with it. We don’t think you guys are in danger now, but we wanted to make you aware.”
“Why don’t you think we’re in danger?” Mike asked. “How can you be certain?”
“We can’t be certain,” Toni said. “But whoever’s behind this needs something from you—your building. And they can only get it if you agree to sell it. Even Pavel Laskin is smart enough to know that this probably won’t happen by threatening you directly and it definitely won’t happen if you’re attacked.”
“We’re confident that he’s going to leave you alone,” I added. “And we’re watching things carefully. The moment we feel things change to be unsafe for you guys, and that includes you, too, Libby, then we’ll let you know.”
Mike looked at Sylvia.
“Don’t look at me,” she said. “The bastards aren’t driving me away from our building—I’m not going anywhere. I’ll stay here overnight with a baseball bat if need be.”
“I’ll help,” Libby said. “I got a Louisville Slugger in my apartment. It’s just waiting for a Russian head to bust.”
I smiled. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”
Mike chuckled. “Well, so be it then. We stay. You know, truth be told, we haven’t heard from them for a few days now. We saw them in the park Wednesday afternoon when you found the body downstairs. But other than that, they don’t seem to have been paying any attention to us.”
“Maybe that’s because we’re distracting them for you,” I said. “Laskin definitely knows who we are.”
“Well,” Sylvia said. “Just in case, perhaps I should reconsider the notion of the baseball bat and move to something a little heavier. Maybe a shotgun of my own.”
Libby shook her head. “Can’t help you there, boss. I left mine back home in Tennessee.”
* * * *
Since we were in Pioneer Square anyway, we grabbed lunch at the Grand Central Bakery. Toni worked on a shrimp sandwich. I polished off the last of an excellent roast beef sandwich and leaned back in my chair. “So—you all set for tonight?”
“What? Dinner? Yeah.”
“You’re pretty quiet,” I said. “What’re you thinking about?”
“I was just thinking about Mike and Sylvia. I mean, I know I sounded pretty confident with them, but do you really think they’re okay? You really think Laskin’s going to leave them alone?”
I nodded. “Yeah, I do. You were right—he needs ’em. He can’t afford to piss ’em off too much. Mike said the harassment’s leveled off, right? I’m actually thinking that may be the reason why. He realized he’s pushed it a little too far.”
She thought about this, holding her sandwich in front of her. Then she resumed. “You’re probably right—you usually are when it comes to this kind of thing. You’re good at thinking like a bad guy.”
I smiled. “Years of experience.”
She finished up, set her napkin next to her plate, and gave me a concerned look. “Don’t get mad—I know you’ve been planning today for a while.”
“Yeah …”
“And I know the flowers didn’t go the way you wanted …”
“Yeah …”
“And I know you’ve got us reservations at Daniel’s …”
“Yeah …”
“But I was just thinking—with everything we’ve got going on, don’t you think maybe we should kick it back a week or so?”
“Dinner?” I sat up straight. “Hell no. Why?”
“I was just thinking about the case.”
“Nuts. The case will work itself out, whether or not we go to dinner tonight. And besides, you gotta eat, right? Besides, next week it won’t be Valentine’s Day. Today, it is. I’ve got reservations made—even got a table picked out. I think we should do it.”
“I’m just a little worried that we should be doing something.”
“We are. We’re running down the anonymous bidder. We’ve already checked out the building. And now, with the DEA lead, we’ve got maybe our best chance to nail Laskin and solve the problem for Mike and Sylvia. But damn, even so, it’s not a twenty-four-hour job. We still have to live.”
She nodded. “Well … okay. I don’t want to blow the plans. I just didn’t want us to miss anything. I started to feel all stressed out.”
“We’re good. We’re on top of things.”
“Okay, I suppose.” She looked at me for a second, then
she tilted her head. “You okay about the flower thing? I’m sorry he sent them over. I liked yours better anyway.”
I laughed. “Now I know you’re bullshitting.”
She smiled at me. “I did like yours better. Really. They were beautiful. Besides, I’d take a single daisy from you rather than a whole truckload of roses from Rico. I already tossed his in the trash.”
“What? All two hundred of ’em?”
She laughed. “They weren’t that big. Besides—knowing Rico, they were funeral roses anyway.”
“What’s a funeral rose?”
“It’s the kind that’s been sitting around in the florist shop for a while, almost ready to fall off the stem. The florists cut the price in half and use ’em for funerals ’cause they only have to look good for a few hours. That describes Rico to a tee. He probably spent about half what you did.”
For some prideful reason, this made me feel better. I nodded. “Thanks.”
She smiled. “Thank you.” She pushed her chair back. “Now—since you insist on wooing me with a fancy dinner at a fancy restaurant, the least I can do is properly prepare. Knowing you wouldn’t change your plans, this chick has a hair appointment in exactly one hour. Take me home so I can get my car, please.”
* * * *
We exited the Grand Central Building and walked through Occidental Park, heading to the lot across the street where I’d parked the Jeep. Just after passing the chess players, I spotted Abraham walking toward us, pushing his cart before him. I’d told Toni about Abraham, but I hadn’t had the chance to introduce him. I started his way, but as soon as I did, he gave a quick little shake of his head and, with his thumb, pointed back over his shoulder. Then he turned away. I looked where he’d pointed and saw Freddie Sokolov and two others, sitting on one of the benches. Sokolov was watching me, and when he saw that I was looking at him, he gave a little wave. I ignored him, and we continued on past.
M.D. Grayson - Danny Logan 05 - Blue Molly Page 13