Calamity (Captain Grande Angil Mysteries)

by Robert G. Bernstein

  From this point forward, I told myself, things would be different. I resolved to think things through. I would approach every case, and every aspect of every case with the same due diligence I would undertake for a dangerous approach to a strange harbor or port. Hope for the best. Plan for the worst.

  At the same time, I had to trust my instincts. While circumstances and physics led me to suspect Zeke as the one who snapped Tanner’s neck, I couldn’t bring myself to believe he would do anything to hurt Jenny. Nor did I think he was a man without a moral compass, which was why I didn’t give him up to Hadley or the two Maine detectives who came to my house. If Zeke was involved in this in some way, I could use him. Maybe, just maybe, I could reason with him. If not, then Zeke would have to go down.

  I also had to think of George up there in Maine with Zeke’s whereabouts unknown. I decided to call him.

  “It’s two thirty in the morning,” he said when he answered. He sounded groggy.

  “I want you to hire some guys to watch your house.”

  “What? What for?”

  “For my peace of mind.”

  “My security system can keep out Hannibal Lector!”

  I heard a sound in the background. “Is somebody with you?”

  “Dude, there’s always somebody with me. I’m a vigorous young man in the prime of my life. If you didn’t have three ex-wives or spend your nights praying to the Almighty Glenlivet you would understand.”

  A woman giggled in the background

  “Don’t knock the single malt,” I said. “Tell her I’m sorry and hire some guards. In the morning.”

  “I’m not—”

  “Do it! As a favor to me.”

  He sighed. “OK, I will.”

  I heard more giggling.

  “Oh well, since I’m awake…”

  “Goodby,” I said and hung up.

  I glanced into the side mirror of the Explorer and saw a sliver of moon. Outside the car, the sodium-oxide bulbs of the streetlights cast an orange-yellow net over everything, turning shops and cars into a monochromatic melange of sameness. Eerie shadows made the parking meters into two-dimensional armless soldiers.

  It was close to zero three hundred. I set my phone and my watch to wake me in two-and-a-half-hours, cracked the windows to let in the cool night air, locked the doors and leaned into the headrest. I laid the forty-five on my lap, under my jacket, with my right hand on the pistol grip, and fell off into a semi-restful sleep.

  37

  The lithe black man in the expensively tailored suit didn’t arrive at the office until ten thirty that morning. I grabbed my camera and managed to snap off two shots with my telephoto lens before he walked through the door. Given the distance and the lighting I wasn’t sure how clear they would be when I blew them up on the computer. I clearly remembered telling myself to think things through and plan but I was feeling antsy with four cups of coffee in me and a sore ass and back from sitting in the Explorer all night. I called Hadley and tried Jenny and when I didn’t get either I placed the forty-five Warthog in my shoulder holster, locked the doors and walked the two blocks to the SafeOps building.

  The receptionist was a strikingly beautiful woman in her middle to late twenties with auburn hair and crystal blue eyes. She sat behind a high countertop that had a sophisticated phone-slash-paging machine mounted in the middle. It looked like the engineer’s soundboard at a recording studio but it was a dispatcher’s communications console similar to what would be found in any police or Coast Guard station.

  A quick glance around told me all I needed to know. There was a guard posted behind the receptionist, and two more guards stood at the metal detector behind the inner security door. If I wanted to go any further I would have to hand over my weapon for safekeeping. Given that I wasn’t sure I had reciprocity in Virginia I decided to make my case at the receptionist desk and hold on to my weapon. I pulled all my acting skills together and put on a big, apologetic face.

  “Excuse me, Ma’am,” I said. “Sorry to bother you but I have a slight problem.”

  She looked up at me with her penetrating blue eyes and smiled. The guard behind her suddenly became aware of my presence and reset his stance. He didn’t quite move from his position but gave the impression he had taken a step toward me.

  “I tried to get the gentleman’s attention,” I said. “He apparently didn’t hear me. The guy who just came in, African-American, thin, tall, wearing a charcoal gray suit. I’m afraid I backed into the side of his SUV. I put a pretty bad dent in the door. I’m really sorry. Is there a way you can get in touch with him for me? I’d like to give him my insurance info and let him know I’ll cover all costs for the repairs.”

  She glanced over her shoulder at the guard behind her, then back at me. A light blinked on her switchboard. She looked down, held one finger in front of me and pressed her earpiece into her ear with the other. The earpiece was wireless. “Yes, sir. Hold please,” she said and passed the call through.

  “That’s Mr. England,” she said, turning her attention away from the board and back in my direction. “I’ll ring him.”

  “Appreciate it,” I said.

  I turned and studied the office lobby. My side of the security door was comfortably utilitarian. A few large potted plants. High track lighting. A large couch and chairs and what looked like a very expensive Italian marble coffee table. The other side of the security door was all business. Stainless steel and plastic furniture, long bare tables and a short hall to the elevator banks.

  “Sir,” the receptionist said to me, “Mr. English will be right down.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  A minute or two later the elevator door opened and the wiry black gentleman in the charcoal gray suit came out. I thought I noticed a smirk cross his face when he caught sight of me through the glass partition.

  The two guards by the metal detector slid out of his path as if they were making room for the Emperor. All they needed to do to complete the picture was bow reverentially.

  “Mr. English,” I said. “My name’s Grande Angil.” I held out my hand and he took it. We shook. His handshake was noncommittal.

  “Sorry to bother you,” I said. “I’m afraid I had a bit of an accident.”

  English smiled. “Did you now?”

  “May we talk in private?”

  “Right here is fine,” he said.

  “How about we sit down. This will only take a minute.”

  He looked at me for a long five-seconds and then stepped over to one of the chairs and sat down. He motioned for me to do the same. I sat in the chair at the opposite end of the marble table and looked him over. English sat erect. He had a strong back and shoulders and no fat around the middle. I could see the strap of a shoulder holster poking at the line of his perfectly tailored suit jacket. If he had been an actor the camera would have loved him. He had a large head with perfect features and a flawless complexion. You would never guess he was anything other than gentile and even tempered. If my instincts could be trusted, this was a man who solved his problems with deadly efficiency and no second thoughts.

  “You said you had an accident,” he said. “Bumped my car? That’s interesting because I take a cab to work every day. This morning I stopped around the corner for coffee. Usually I just come straight here but this morning I wanted a second cup so I had the cabby stop at Jed’s down the street. Then I walked. Took my time. I left my car at home. In the garage. It’s a Mercedes. I love that car. It’s a 1982 450 SEL. You know it? Great car. I wouldn’t want to see it get scratched or dented.”

  “You ever hear of a guy named Pete Tanner?” I said. “He was a lobsterman. Lived in Maine. He had his neck broken in three places. I saw you meet up with him in Annapolis a few days ago. You talked to him about money. My guess is you paid him off for somebody else and it wasn’t enough. He wanted more. Maybe he wanted too much, or maybe you just got sick of paying him.”

  English stood and nodded to the three guards. They sta
rted in our direction with their hands under their uniforms.

  “You must have me confused with someone else. Angil is it?”

  “No, I’m not mistaken,” I said. The guards were getting closer.

  “I’m looking for Jenny Bowers,” I said. “She’s missing.”

  “I don’t know any Jenny Bowers. And, I’m sure you’ve overstayed your welcome.”

  The guards were surrounding us now, waiting for English to say the word.

  “What’s it going to be, Mr. Angil. Would you like to leave the office on your own accord, or shall I have Mary there call the local authorities and an ambulance?”

  I stood up and straightened my jacket, careful not to appear aggressive. “That’s all right, Mr. English. We can continue this another time.” I headed for the door.

  “Just so you know. The name is spelled A-N-G-I-L. You’ll probably want to check me out. You won’t find much. Couple of speeding tickets. A couple of bar altercations. A few other infractions. It’s what’s not there that’s important. I am an angry old sea dog. I don’t give up and I don’t give in. If someone hurt Jenny Bowers, I will find out who did it and hurt them back.”

  I walked out of the building. I didn’t look behind me but was aware of the three guards escorting me to the edge of the property. One of them continued to follow me and as a result I decided to walk to the delicatessen around the corner, instead of to the Explorer. He stopped at the door of the restaurant and watched as I took a stool at the counter. I ordered a burger deluxe and a beer and returned his stare through the front window. He lifted a phone to his face and spoke into it before heading back to his office.

  The short order cook behind the counter didn’t look all that pleased with having to slap a burger on his breakfast grille at ten forty-five in the morning. He mumbled a few obscenities at the waitress when she passed him the slip. She brushed it off with a wave, then pulled a Budweiser out of the cooler and brought it over. She poured it into a frosted glass. I apologized to her about causing her some grief with the chef. I seemed to be apologizing a lot lately.

  “That’s OK, honey,” she said. “Don’t mind Bill. He don’t get his nice on until late in the day.”

  “I can relate,” I said. “Tell him I’m sorry. I had a craving for a good burger. Please, if you don’t mind, would you ask him not to lick his thumb and stick it in the meat while it’s cooking.”

  She laughed, a rich, full, honest laugh. She was a heavy-set black woman, big around the middle, wearing a blue and white uniform, white apron fitting almost skin tight, white ankle socks and white Reebocks.

  “You slung some hash in your day, haven’t ya?” she said.

  “Honey, I’ve done just about everything in my day.” I toasted her and took a sip of beer. She laughed and walked off to help two patrons at the other end of the counter. Inside the kitchen Bill was looking at me and shaking his head. I gave him a thumb’s up and hoped he would grill the piss out of my burger.

  I was enjoying the fresh, nutty taste of my red, white and blue when the phone rang. I looked at the caller I.D. and it said, “Unavailable.” My heart sank. That usually meant my mother’s home calling with bad news, either she’d fallen and hurt herself or God knows what, maybe even a stroke.

  The person on the other end didn’t introduce himself. He didn’t have to. When I heard him say, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I knew exactly who it was.

  “Zeke,” I said. “Where’s Jenny?”

  “She’s safe,” Zeke said.

  “Where?”

  “I can’t tell you. Listen to me, Angil. You can’t be screwin’ with these people. You out of your league, man. By a long mile.”

  “Did you kill Tanner, Zeke?”

  “I ain’t talkin’ ‘bout that right now.”

  “Let’s meet somewhere,” I said. “We can work it out.”

  There was a pause. I waited.

  “You don’t know these people,” he said. “They serious as a heart attack.”

  “What about Aaron, Zeke? Is he alive?”

  “I don’t know where Aaron is. Nobody does.”

  “What’s your part in all this, Zeke? Talk to me. Come on. At least tell me where you are.”

  “I would never do anything to hurt The Lady,” he said. “I’ll never hurt The Lady. You understand me?”

  “Zeke, I talked to her. She didn’t know where she was. She’s drugged and being held against her will. It’s not right. Look, you may think you have a handle on this. You may think you can go it alone. You can’t. You’re not thinking clearly. Now bring me in. Let me help you. If you want to help Jenny, talk to me.”

  There was another long pause.

  “I know what I’m doing. Jenny’s fine. Where she’s at is for her own good right now. It’s temporary. You can’t help. The more you mess around with English and SafeOps the more trouble you cause her.”

  “Why, Zeke? Tell me.”

  “Damnit, Angil. Every move you make puts more people in the crosshairs. You an amateur, bro.”

  I felt a twitch in my chest.

  “Are you the button man, Zeke?”

  “I gotta go. Stay out of it, OK?”

  “I can’t do that, Zeke.”

  “You’re making it worse.”

  “Says you. A man who’s even more over his head than I am. You’re playing both sides. Zeke! Trying to make everybody happy. That never works.”

  “It worked for thirteen years, until you showed up.”

  “Really? What about Jenny’s husband, Aaron’s father, and Jenny’s other little boy? You call that working? Somebody has to pay for that.”

  “Lot’s of bad things happen in this world, in the past, and nobody pays. Those that do pay, if it matters to them, they pay in their own way. God takes care of the rest. Go back to Maine, Angil. Forget about this. I’ll fix it.”

  “How, like you fixed it with Aaron? With Tanner? Hiding Jenny? You going to keep her hidden forever? You got Aaron hidden too? Can’t you see it’s escalating, getting out of control? For Chrissakes, Zeke, let me help you. We can take them.”

  “Leave it, Angil. Don’t make me come after you, too.”

  I started to say something but Zeke had ended the call. I pocketed my phone and looked up, saw the two other patrons at the Deli counter and the waitress staring at me. I had been talking hunched over the counter, speaking in what I thought was a low tone of voice. Apparently not low enough. I smiled at them and shrugged and they turned away. In the kitchen, Bill slung my burger under the heat lamps. The waitress nodded to the other people at the counter, then waddled over to get my food and bring it to me.

  “Sorry,” I said as she slid the plate in front of me. “I guess I was talking a bit loud. A little family problem.”

  “None o’ my business, honey,” she said and placed the plate in front of me. “Ketchup?”

  “Please.”

  She started to walk away. I called to her. “Excuse me,” I said nodding toward the burger. “I hate to tell you this but it looks too good to only eat one.”

  “You want another?” She sounded incredulous.

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  “Oh honey, Bill’s gonna love you.”

  “I’ll take my chances,” I said.

  “Bill,” she yelled into the kitchen. “Order up!”

  38

  I walked out of Bill’s excellent burger joint and looked down the street to my left. A black Crown Victoria with a few too many antennas was parked in the first spot. It had a light bar with blue lenses behind the grille.

  When I got within a few feet of the car the passenger window rolled down and a familiar voice said: “Get in, asshole.”

  Hadley looked very comfortable in the driver’s seat. He was casual, wearing dark slacks, a heavy denim work shirt, a western-style suede vest and a cowboy hat. I couldn’t see them but I was fairly sure the ensemble was accentuated with a pair of Tony Lama cowboy boots.

  “Food any good in there
?” he asked. His eyes gave me the perfunctory once-over as I situated myself in the passenger seat and shut the door.

  “Can’t go wrong with bacon burgers,” I said.

  “For breakfast?”

  “Time means nothing to me. They call you from SafeOps?”

  He stuck out his jaw and nodded once. “Not me directly. Ain’t my town. Or my state. I heard about it, though. Knew it was you.” He smiled. “Took me about fifty minutes to get here.”

  “I take it that’s good time,” I said.

  The dispatcher’s voice came through on the radio and Hadley reached quickly across the dash to turn the volume down.

  “What did I tell you about being on a stakeout in a foreign land?” he said.

  “Something came up,” I said. By the way, sorry about hanging up on you yesterday. Very rude of me.”

  Hadley frowned and waved me off with his hand, like he was shooing away a fly.

  “You look like you been ate by wolves and shit over a cliff,” he said. “Up all night, probably. I can tell. Sleeping in your car, or trying to. Realizing you got nothing but trying to make it happen anyway. You can’t scare these guys. I mean, what the hell you think you’re doing?”

  I really wasn’t in the mood for a private dick lesson. However, I didn’t want to say anything to turn Hadley against me. So far my first job wasn’t going all that well. Among my other problems . . . one of the guys I had placed my trust in had just kidnapped my client.

  “Would you like to know what I think is going on?” I said.

  Hadley slid his ass across the seat and turned to look at me.”Honestly, I’m not sure.”

  “Just give me five minutes. Let me run it by you. Five minutes.”

  Hadley shook his head and shifted his weight until he settled back into a front-facing driving position. He mumbled something incoherent, turned the key in the ignition and revved the engine once, then he looked in his mirrors, waited for a bread truck to roll by and pulled away from the curb.

  “Talk to me,” he said, as we headed down the street.

  I leaned back and took a deep breath. Hadley headed away from the main drag toward the river. We got back on Dolly Madison Blvd., drove for a bit, then turned onto the Parkway. We were tracking South, toward DC.