“Are you listening to me?”
“Sorry,” I said. “This whole thing is a mess. It doesn’t make sense. And Peter’s probably dead.”
“Amanda doesn’t care about him. You know that, don’t you?”
I nodded slowly. “The X Women probably want to kill her, too. That worries me.”
“Even though she nearly ruined it for you tonight with that burglar alarm?” Cal asked.
“Amanda can help us figure out what happened to Peter.”
“How?”
“By getting closer to the X Women. She goes to the meeting, where she asks what happened to him.”
“Maybe they just want to kill her,” Cal voiced my concern. “Do you know how easy it would be for the X Women to kidnap her? They can eliminate her so fast the FBI, or you, would never even know it.”
I finished my beer. “I can’t let that happen. She deserves jail, but not death.”
“You’re probably the only detective who’s ever helped the guilty person.” Cal raised his beer bottle in a toast.
“Just like the movies.” I signaled to the waitress and ordered another beer. “Humphrey Bogart helped some pretty shaky heroines.”
“You’re not Bogie.”
I forced a smile. “No kidding.”
We talked for a while longer and then Cal took me home.
“You want me to drive back down the alley?” Cal asked as we turned near my neighborhood.
I started to nod my head. “No, wait. Drop me off in front.”
Cal turned his head. “They’ll know you ditched them.”
“I know. Serves them right for watching us.”
Cal turned down my street and pulled in front of my building, his headlights illuminating the FBI vehicle right in front of us. I got out of Cal’s car and walked around the front. Agent White’s eyes widened in surprise. I waved at him. He glowered back at me as he pulled out a cell phone. I turned and grinned at Cal, who laughed as he drove off. Tapping the hood of the sedan, I said, “Better luck next time.” White yelled something at me as I climbed up the side stairs, but it didn’t bother me. I crawled into bed and was asleep within ten minutes.
*****
At twenty minutes to twelve the next day, I took a walk into downtown Denver, presumably to visit the bank. What I really needed was a noisy, crowded place where I could take Amanda’s call, someplace where it would be difficult for the feds to listen in.
One of the benefits of living in Colorado is the rapid temperature changes. On any day, the weather can swing from freezing cold to sunny skies and soothing warmth. This was such a day, and I walked in the spring-like weather, enjoying the bright blue skies and temperatures in the upper 50's. People lucky enough to have Friday off left their coats and gloves behind as they strolled toward restaurants on the Sixteenth Street Mall for lunch. Birds chirped from bare branches. And now, two FBI agents tailed me.
Agent White, who seemed exceedingly unhappy when I greeted him, stayed in his car, crawling down the streets behind me. His new partner, a tall, emaciated-looking fellow, kept pace with me, leaving about thirty feet between us as we walked. At least if I got mugged I would have a witness or two, although I doubt Agent White or his partner would bother to help me.
At noon, I was standing in the lobby of Wells Fargo at 17th and Curtis, filling out a withdrawal slip, when my cell phone rang. As I answered it, I glanced out the smoky glass windows onto 17th. The black sedan was parked on the street, just outside the entrance to the building. My walking companion stood outside the bank entrance, watching me through the glass doors.
“It’s me,” Amanda said. “The message came through.”
“What’s the next move?” I turned to face the teller windows, leaning away from the doors where the skinny agent watched me.
“I’m supposed to meet them at P.F. Chang's at Park Meadows Mall. Monday night at seven.”
“Them? There’s more than one?”
“That’s what they said.”
“They? Who did you talk to?”
“It was a distorted voice, the same as before. I don’t know if it was a him, her, or them, okay?”
She knew how to try a person’s patience. “What happens then?” I asked.
“It,” she said caustically, “didn’t say. I’m to ask for the reservation for M-O-R-T-E.” She spelled it for me.
“Interesting,” I said. I used the reflection in my sunglasses to keep an eye on the doors. So far, the skinny guy didn’t seem overly interested in what I was doing.
“What do I do?”
“Meet them.”
“Reed,” Amanda said. “What are you going to do?”
I stared at the deposit slip, my mind as blank as the balance on the paper. “Sit tight. I’ll work out a plan and call you when I’ve got something.”
“When?” she persisted.
“Give me twenty-four hours. I’ll call you on your cell phone.” I hung up and stood at the little table with the deposit and withdrawal forms, feeling I’d been deposited, right in a pile of shit. I didn’t know much about the X Women, but this was weird.
To keep up pretenses, I finished filling out the form, visited a teller and withdrew some cash. As I walked out of the bank I passed the gaunt agent who now leaned against the marble wall across from the entrance. I winked at him. He raised one eyebrow at me and waited until I was out on Seventeenth before he followed.
I basked in the sunshine as I strolled back home, pretending that there weren’t two feds tracking my every move. I ate a turkey sandwich, and went to the garage for the 4-Runner. I spent the remainder of the day scoping out P.F. Chang's at Park Meadows Mall.
Park Meadows is one of Denver’s ritzier shopping malls, a sprawling complex of buildings and restaurants at the junction of I-25 and C-470. P.F. Chang's restaurant, a trendy place serving westernized Chinese food, is situated on the east side of the mall, between two other restaurants.
As I sat in my car, studying the lay of the land, I had to admit the X Women chose the place well. The restaurant was crowded now, at the end of the lunch hour, and I’m sure it would be just as packed at seven tomorrow night. If I planned to kidnap somebody, I would choose a crowded place like this. The lines of parking lanes, stretching all the way back to the mall, would be perfect. The X Women could walk Amanda outside and easily persuade her into a car. There would be so many people, busy doing their own things, so no one would even notice.
I sketched a picture of the layout, then decided to go in for a light snack, leaving Agent White and his companion watching from their vehicle, parked one row from mine. After a ten-minute wait, a frazzled hostess seated me at a table by windows facing south. The atmosphere of the restaurant was very open, with postmodern metal-legged tables and matching chairs. With few walls, the sounds of voices and dishes rattling echoed noisily. Again, a perfect choice. Who would be able to overhear a conversation between a couple of women amidst all the other competing conversations? I could barely hear myself think, and the lunch crowd was diminishing.
A pleasant waiter came over, and I ordered Mongolian beef, extra hot, and an iced tea. I made notes of where the emergency exits were, as well as the restrooms and the kitchen. I still didn’t have a plan of what to do, nor did I know if the X Women were going to kidnap Amanda, but having an escape route seemed to be prudent. My Mongolian beef, full of red peppers, arrived. I ate it all with an obscene pleasure and then left.
To make more work for my FBI tails, I decided to wander around the mall for a while. Later in the afternoon, I drove to B-52’s, playing pool in an attempt to clear my mind. The two FBI agents came in and had drinks at the bar, presumably soda water, while they surreptitiously watched me play. I was beyond caring. As I shot game after game, I couldn’t shake the fact that the X Women were putting themselves in a dangerous situation, and that there was much more to why they were changing their modus operandi. It didn’t make sense.
*****
By eight o’clock I decided that no matter ho
w much I practiced, I still couldn’t hit the two-rail kick shot, where the cue ball hits two rails before hitting the target ball, and I didn’t know any more about what the X Women were up to. I won a game playing against a couple of college students, then drove home with my spirits slightly bolstered. As I came up the walk, Deuce bolted out the front door. He stumbled off the porch stairs and did a 9.6 somersault into the lawn.
“Whoa,” I said, helping him to his feet. “What’s up there, pardner?”
“Dude,” he said, out of breath. “I’m in a hurry.”
“No kidding. But you’ll end up on your ass again if you’re not careful.”
“Yeah, but I gotta get this movie back. Ace will kill me if it’s late.”
“What’d you rent?” He held out a DVD case, which I read. The Big Sleep. “So you guys finally rented it. I could’ve loaned you my copy.”
Deuce bobbed his head up and down. “Ace got it for free. He works at the video store, you know.”
I nodded knowingly with him. “What’d you think of the movie?”
He scrunched up his nose in distaste. “I didn’t get it. All these people get killed, but you don’t get to see it, ‘cause it all happened some other time. Except at the end of the movie. That guy, Marlowe, was that his name? He fooled them, didn’t he? You would think the other guy would know that Marlowe was going to get him. The good guy always wins. Even I know that.”
“Ah, that’s the best part,” I said, clapping him on the shoulder.
I loved that part, my favorite hero, Bogie, outwits the bad guy, Eddie Mars. Bogie sets him up, and then gets Mars to explain all the killings. He causes Mars to be killed by his own gang members, all the loose ends are wrapped up nice and tidy, and Bogie gets the girl in the end.
“Why do you keep talking golf?” He brushed a hand over his hair, seeming frustrated.
“Deuce, you’re right. Bogie is a golf term, but it’s also the nickname of the actor. Humphrey Bogart plays the main character, Philip Marlowe.”
“The guy with the hat.”
I nodded uncertainly. After all, there were a lot of guys with hats on in those old movies. I wasn’t entirely sure we were talking about the same guy. “Yeah, Bogie wore a hat, and he was the detective. The one who figures it all out. Like me.”
“Huh?” Deuce looked more baffled now, not an unusual occurrence.
“Forget it,” I said. “Return the movie. Sorry I got in your way.” Deuce rolled his eyes at me and sprinted off.
He ran past a dark sedan, where Agent White’s replacement sat observing us, and disappeared around the corner. I was my usual friendly self with the new agent, waving a greeting as I walked upstairs to my condo.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
I didn’t sleep well that night. I kept dreaming that I had to rescue Amanda, who resembled a very sexy Lauren Bacall, and I was not unlike Bogie. We were at P.F. Chang's, and an X Woman who looked like Xena, the Warrior Princess, was trying to kidnap Amanda. Right when I’d come in to rescue her, my father would show up and ask when I was going to get a real job, while my mother stood beside him asking if I was smoking marijuana. I awoke with a start at dawn. After ten minutes of staring at the ceiling, I decided to it was a good time for a run.
The morning was crisp and clear as I came down the steps and around the corner. Ace was exiting his place, a steaming coffee mug in his hand.
“What’re you doing working so early on a Saturday?” I asked him. I rarely saw Ace before nine or ten because he worked odd hours at the video store, usually late nights, not mornings. And never this early.
“I told Bob I'd help him work on his truck,” Ace said. I noticed now that the jeans he wore were torn and smudged with grease.
“I hear you didn’t like the movie.” I was doing all I could to avoid my run.
He grimaced. “Sorry, man. I didn’t get it. Trying to follow who killed who. At least with Arnold Schwarzenegger you know who gets killed. And didn’t that guy Mars know that the detective was going to get him in the end? Mars should’ve known that. The good guy always wins. Arnold always wins.”
“I’ll be sure to tell Bogie that.”
“Huh?”
“Never mind,” I said, waving him off. I noticed my FBI tail was there, with two bleary-eyed agents sitting in the front seat. They looked desperate to get off duty.
I did some stretching on the front porch, cracked my neck, and retied my shoes. After that I couldn’t find any more excuses, so I took off in a sprint, determined to run at least five miles. Okay, maybe three.
As I ran, my mind wandered over things. Carmen, the femme fatale in The Big Sleep, reminded me of Amanda. Both were sneaky, seductive, and ultimately fallen. I doubted Amanda would appreciate the comparison. And it didn’t surprise me that the Brothers had a hard time following the movie. There were seven murders, and most of them happened off-screen. I thought the brothers might like the shootout at the end, though. Bogie fools the crooks, and gets Mars to walk right into his own trap.
And then it hit me. I couldn’t believe the Goofball Brothers saw it and I didn’t. I stopped, turned around, and ran like Eddie Mars was after me, all the way home.
I took the porch steps two at a time and ran headlong up the stairs. I used my cell phone to call Cal to discuss my theory, thinking we could talk in some kind of code so my FBI listeners wouldn’t know what we were really saying. But I got his answering machine, so I left a message to call me as soon as he could. Since he rarely left his house, he had to be in the shower. At least that's what I hoped. He would call soon.
I hung up the phone and found my copy of The Big Sleep sitting on the shelf with my other favorite movies. I pulled it out of the case as I walked into the living room. I slid in the DVD and sat down on the edge of the couch with the remote control aimed like a gun at the player.
The Big Sleep. The title referred to death, to villains doing evil deeds while the city sleeps and when some fool gets in the way, he's killed. I watched Bogie and Bacall in their first scene together. Did they ever create some intense chemistry. It was just getting to the good stuff, Bacall at her seductive best, when the phone rang.
I paused the movie and grabbed the cordless phone sitting on the end table. “It’s about time.”
“About time for what, dear?”
“Oh. Hi Mom,” I said.
“Don’t sound so disappointed, dear,” she said.
“I’m kind of busy right now.”
“You should never be too busy for your mother, darling, and don’t get fresh with me. You sound better than you did the other night. I was worried about you, but your father said to leave you alone. You’re a man now, and I needn’t worry myself over you, even if you do such silly things and put yourself in danger. Were you in danger, dear? It wasn’t drugs, was it?” She was on a roll. If I didn’t know better, I’d say she was the one on drugs.
“If you only knew,” I said in exasperation.
“Yes, we’re fine. You sound funny. What’re you doing? Are you okay?” She was off and running, asking me about the job, did I get the oranges, and telling me that I should choose a less dangerous profession. I heard my father in the background, yelling something about me being an adult and making my own decisions, even if they weren’t the brightest. “Anyway, dear,” Mom rushed to wrap up the conversation. “I’m excited to see you. You have all our flight information.”
I assured her I did.
“Okay, darling. I must be going.” I said I’d see her soon. “Oh, and Reed?” She rarely called me by my first name. “Yes?” I was all ears. “Do be careful.” She paused. “I love you, dear.”
So that was the heart of the call. She was more than a little worried after our talk the other night. I made a mental note to shield her from the dangerous aspects of my new profession. And to tell her that I loved her, which I did.
I focused on the DVD again, trying to find the scene that I was searching for, where Marlowe, played by Bogie, kills the villain, Mars. I
thought this would answer the question about how the X Women wanted to deal with Amanda. Just like Ace had mentioned, the bad guy can't outwit the good guy.
After scanning scenes for a bit, I found the part I wanted near the end, where Marlowe sets up Mars. Marlowe has arranged a meeting with Mars, but Marlowe arrives much earlier than the appointed time. Now he only has to wait.
Mars arrives at the meeting place early, planning to have his henchmen hide outside and ambush Marlowe. But Mars, of course, has no idea that Marlowe is already there.
I sat back on the couch, watching the black-and-white scene unfold, the remote dangling in my hand. The setup: The X Women were playing with Amanda, making her run around in circles, confusing her, the same way Marlowe put one over on Mars in the movie. The X Women were playing with Amanda, making her run around in circles, distracting her with instructions about the supposed rendezvous. It reminded me of how Mars and Marlowe each tried to get the jump on the other one in the lead-up to that climactic scene in the movie. Amanda would be so focused on the meeting tomorrow night that she, and her detective helper – me - wouldn’t be expecting anything between now and then. The X Women would be way ahead of us. I watched Bogie and Bacall, smoking in the dark as the movie ended, but my mind wasn't on them.
Amanda and I were in trouble. The meeting tomorrow night was a decoy, I was sure of it. Whatever was going to happen, would happen before then. The X Women were setting us up, just like Mars planned to ambush Marlowe by striking before he expected it. The question was, could Amanda and I beat them at their own “set-up” game the way Marlowe outwitted Mars?
I paced in the living room for a minute, not sure what to do. Should I call Amanda and tell her, knowing the FBI was listening in? What if I was wrong? I’d look like an idiot, and I would’ve tipped my hand about the meeting tomorrow. And I would anger Agent Forbes because I remained involved. I didn’t want that. But what if I was right? I tried Cal again, wanting to use him as a sounding board.
I decided the first thing to do was to get out of my sweaty running clothes, so I peeled them off, showered and dressed in jeans and black turtleneck. By the time I’d finished, I had determined that I would talk to Amanda. I would deal with the FBI consequences later. I left another message for Cal to call me on my cell phone, grabbed my car keys and ran out of the house. In ten minutes, I was fighting mid-morning traffic and road construction on my way to Amanda’s house. I barely noticed Agent White trying to keep up with me as I sped around cars and semis, my concern for Amanda’s safety growing. I needed to get to her before it was too late.
This Doesn't Happen In The Movies (The Reed Ferguson Mystery Series) Page 14