by Todd Morgan
I looked around my office. It was on the second floor of a closed sock factory. Sarah had fallen asleep on the couch on the far side of the large room. She had quit taking naps a year ago, but even she was not immune to the power of that couch. It snagged me on a regular basis. Aside from the computer, my desktop was empty.
I tapped the space bar to wake it up. I had to wait a few minutes for the email to pop up in my inbox. I opened it. Apparently, Melvin Jenks was stepping out on his wife, Cynthia. Cynthia suspected her husband was planning on meeting his mistress (probably the secretary) that very evening. Melvin Jenks. We had never met, though I had seen in his name in the newspaper. He was the president of a local bank. Hence, the big payday. My job was to find hard evidence of the affair.
I heard the outdoor stairs rattle. I didn’t have any appointments and walk-ins were rare in my business. As a matter of fact, business was rare lately. Maybe it was my lucky day. Maybe I was going to get two clients in a one hour period. My door opened and two men came in. Maybe it wasn’t going to be my lucky day.
The first guy was big, six feet or so with muscles bulging at his exposed neck the way they do on professional bodybuilders. The second guy, though, was the one who made my spidey sense tingle. Next to his partner, he looked almost tiny, five foot ten, a buck sixty, an unhealthy pale as if he had never seen the sun. He had a stillness about him, a calm readiness in his body language, hazel eyes that took in everything without moving. I opened the top drawer of my desk and found no help there. I didn’t carry my gun when Sarah was with me. Of course, they didn’t know that.
“Beason Camp?” The big guy came complete with a big head, dark, unruly hair, and a broad nose that was on the crooked side. The ugliness in his face went much deeper than the skin.
“Yeah?” I let my chair fall forward, the balls of my feet on the floor, ready to move. “How can I help you?”
He grinned, took two steps deeper into the room and swung his head around. Not near as subtle as his partner. He did a double take at the still form on the couch. The smile turned upside down. He looked at his partner and pulled out a cell phone. While he made the call, my eyes never left the smaller man. His didn’t leave mine, either.
“Yeah, he’s here,” the big guy said into the phone. “Only problem is, the daughter is here, too.” He listened for a moment, killed the call and shook his head at his partner. “Be seeing ya,” he said to me, turned and stomped out. His partner backed to the door, nodded once and left without a word.
The silence was overwhelming.
“Daddy?”
I blinked, wondering what the hell had just happened. “What, baby?”
“Can we get some lunch?”
***
My brother didn’t get back to me until late in the day. I had spent the afternoon working background on Melvin Jenks. Jenks was forty-seven years old, which seemed kind of young to me for a bank president. Of course, the number of bank presidents I knew of (counting Jenks) was a total of one. He had graduated from an appropriate Big East college with a masters in finance and had worked for a handful of banks before being hired as Vice President of Southeastern eight years ago. He had taken over the top spot less than a year earlier. Interesting. What power and prestige can do to a man and his morals. He and Cynthia Floyd had married twenty-three years ago in March, a spring wedding. They had two teenage daughters and an elementary age son, Melvin Jr. Amazing what you can get off the internet.
His Facebook page seemed to be regularly updated, where he ate dinner and the last movie he had seen. His sole had been excellent and the popcorn had been cold. Pity. He had an eight handicap and enjoyed hunting and fishing. There was a picture of him straddling the carcass of a nine point buck, grinning in his camouflage and hunter’s orange. He was a fairly large man, a little paunch creeping in, slowly going bald, his light brown hair combed over the receding hairline. He could probably get away with it for another year or two. There was a picture of his home, not really a mansion, but close, and I got a good sense of the “big payday.” There were no pictures of his wife and children. Indeed, his relationship status had been left blank, as if he had overlooked the entry. Yet, he had carefully listed his high school and college graduation, his old fraternity and his current social clubs and charity work.
***
“What are you doing?”
“Working. You?”
“Laying on my beach in Tahiti.”
“Must be nice.”
“Uh huh. What’s up?”
“I was wondering if ya’ll could watch the princess tonight?”
“Hot date?”
“Yeah, right. Work.”
“I wish I could help you, but I’ve got a big project going and have to work late myself.”
“I thought things were slow.”
“Exactly. Which is why I can’t screw it up. The missus has to take Sonny to a wrestling meet in Birmingham tonight. What about Erin?”
“She does have a hot date.”
“You have any babysitters you can call?”
“Besides you?”
He chuckled.
“Parents these days are hesitant to leave their teenage daughters alone in the company of a stud such as myself.”
“With good reason. You try dad?”
“He has enough on his plate.”
“Ain’t that the truth. I’m sure he would do it.”
“I am, too. I’ll figure out something.”
“Oh hell.”
Chapter Three
I picked up Jenks as he left work a few minutes after five. Banker’s hours. He walked out with a younger woman with long hair and a short skirt. Details were hard to make out, but she seemed to be attractive—from a distance. Thin, self-assured, confident in her heels. They gave each other a businesslike nod and climbed into their respective vehicles, hers a late model Honda, his a sporty Lexus. They pulled out of the lot, Jenks in the lead, and I pulled out of the gas station across the street.
There was no reason for them to expect a tail, but I still stayed three cars behind them. They were allegedly about to commit an illicit act and therefore might be a little on the suspicious side. Traffic was as bad as it got in Chickasaw Falls—which meant running a red light without looking might or might not be dangerous. Both sets of blinkers came on and I slowed, letting them turn into a Chinese takeout place. I drove past and stopped at a drugstore, watching them in the rearview. Jenks went inside while she remained in her car. They must have called ahead, because Jenks came out after only a couple of minutes, triumphantly carrying two plastic bags. The convoy set out again. I let them get ahead. I had a pretty good idea where they were going. In a town this small, their options were limited and even if I was wrong, I was confident it wouldn’t take a half hour to find them.
I caught up with them as they pulled into a hotel on the edge of town, next to the interstate. Jenks went into the lot while she parked in front of the lobby. I took the second entrance and circled the hotel. The Lexus was in the front row. I parked a good distance away that still left me with a good view. I took my digital camera from the passenger seat. I snapped a few wide shots to establish the setting, the car parked in a hotel lot. The Honda left the lobby and she left the car in the second row with plenty of spaces between them. I took a few shots of her. Jenks got out of his car with the takeout and met her on the walkway. I narrowed the focus and took a bunch of shots of them together. She opened the door and I was able to get them going in. I pulled out my cell, scrolled through the contacts and hit the number I needed.
“Chickasaw Falls Inn.”
“Tom?”
“This is Billy. Tom is off tonight.”
The line of work I was in, it paid to be on good terms with the hotel clerks in town.
“Hey, Billy. This is Beason Camp.”
“Hey, Bees. You need a room tonight?”
I winced, checking the backseat to see if Sarah had somehow heard the comment, might somehow know what it implied. Luckily, she still had
the headphones on, watching Alvin and the Chipmunks on her portable DVD player.
“No, not tonight. I was calling about the woman you just checked in.”
“Mrs. Driver? She’s a nice lady.”
“She a frequent customer?”
“Once a week, sometimes twice. Why?”
“Why do you think?”
There was a pause.
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“Where are you?”
“Parking lot. Do you think you could make me a copy of the registration form?”
“Ooo. You know we’re not supposed to do that.”
“Uh huh. While you’re at it, make copies of the other times she’s stayed here.”
“Like I said, we’re not supposed to do that.”
“Billy, let’s cut the shit about you doing the right thing. We both know you’ll make more in five minutes than you would pulling a double shift.”
Billy laughed. “Gonna cost you for earlier visits.”
“Okay.”
“Give me five minutes.”
I disconnected the call. Headlights flared and a full sized truck rolled through the lot. It stopped next to my passenger door. The driver looked at me and smiled, then looked into the back of the Jeep to see Sarah strapped in her car seat. It was the same guy who came by my office. The big one. I had to assume his partner was with him. I was still without my piece. He shook his head and the truck roared off. The truck had Louisiana plates and I wrote the number down in my notebook. Jenks hadn’t been the only one not expecting a tail.
I racked my brain, trying to figure out what this was all about. I was not a man without enemies. Plenty of ex-wives and ex-husbands out there who would love to see me get my comeuppance. There were also criminals I had helped put away, thieves, drug dealers and a murderer or two. Throw in the scrapes I had been in dating back to my teens and the list got plenty long.
Whoever they were and whatever they wanted, evidently they didn’t want it with my daughter around. I had to give them credit for that. Which significantly narrowed the list. Lowlifes were lowlifes for a reason, and most would be jubilant at the opportunity to harm me with my daughter to witness.
I gave it up. Insufficient evidence. Whatever was coming was coming. Now I knew to be ready for it. No more leaving home without the gun. And no more bringing the princess along for a day with daddy.
Back to the matter at hand. Jenks and his companion would eat before moving on to their illicit activity. I had plenty of time to get the records from Billy, but didn’t want to leave Sarah alone in the jeep. Not with my new friends out there somewhere.
“Daddy?”
“Yes, baby.”
She had removed the headphones, her dark hair a mess. “I gotta pee.”
“Sure, honey.” When a four year old tells you she has to go, there isn’t much time. Lessons learned the hard way.
I started the SUV and pulled around to the front of the hotel. Billy was standing behind the desk, smiling. I pointed Sarah to the restroom.
“A little young even for you, Beasily.”
“Not funny, Billy. Not funny at all.” We shook hands and he slid a manila envelope across the counter. Sarah came out of the bathroom. “Did you flush?”
Sarah went back into the bathroom.
Billy was scrutinizing the bill I had slipped him. “I told you it was going to cost extra for the old records.”
Sarah came out of the bathroom.
“Did you wash your hands?”
Sarah went back into the bathroom.
“Anything over a hundred dollars, I have to have a receipt,” I told him. “You gonna sign a receipt?”
Billy shrugged. “Guess it’ll have to do.”
Chapter Four
Next day, I was in the sock factory, the princess safely at pre-school and the Colt .45 in the drawer. The Colt .45 was my gun. Have you ever had something and the minute you touched it, you knew it was yours? It was that way with me and dark Bacardi, the second it was on my lips, I knew that was my drink. The first kiss I shared with Stella, she was my girl. The first karate lesson, I knew I had found my sport. I have used many, many, firearms throughout my life. Rifles, shotguns, assault weapons, machine guns, revolvers and other automatics. But none of them felt so right in my hand as the Colt .45. The weight of it, the power it held, the simple beauty of it. There were other pistols with more firepower, others with more capacity, sexier pieces others drooled over, but the Colt .45 was my gun.
I was on the computer, chasing down a hunch. Melvin Jenks and his mistress had stayed in the hotel room until shortly after eleven before going their separate ways. Looking back, Mrs. Jenks felt her husband had been acting suspicious for the last month. Working late, business dinners, mysterious trips on behalf of the bank. Maybe Jenks had fallen in love with his secretary. Maybe he had fallen under the charms of a younger woman who had shown an interest in him that he had not known for some time. Or maybe he had always been a cheating spouse and his wife had finally caught on. My gut feeling, though, was that this was something new. His recent promotion to bank president had elevated him to a position of power and prominence and the papers were full of powerful men feeling entitled to a fling.
I started with the free dating websites. Places like E Harmony and Match.com required a credit card. Credit cards left trails. I had no doubt that a bank president could easily find a way to cover his tracks, but I figured he would also recognize the potential danger.
I maintained a couple of identities on the dating sites—both men and women. I logged on as Looking4Mine, a twenty-seven year old blond knockout. She was a professional making between forty and fifty thousand dollars a year, recently divorced with no children, hoping to find someone to share sunsets and a good bottle of wine. I had downloaded her picture off Facebook, an unsuspicious young lady from Southern California and built the bio myself. I tweaked her interest to reflect her search for a “man of experience” and moved her profile to public.
I began the troll, looking for plenty of forty-seven year old men looking for a soul mate, but none that matched Jenks. I frowned to myself, sure that I was on the right track. I widened the search to men between the ages of forty and fifty. It took a while, but I finally found him. J-love. I checked to make sure he wasn’t online before clicking the profile. I wasn’t yet ready for a chat. The picture was “available on request,” a sensible move to keep anyone from recognizing him, but there was no doubt. J-love was divorced (which I was fairly certain would surprise Mrs. Jenks) three kids, in the two hundred thousand and above salary range. He was also forty-three years old. Maybe he thought forty-five was too old, that that age would remove him from too many searches. J-love wasn’t looking for a relationship, only wanted to “get out of the house and have a good time.” I printed it all out and logged off.
The honey pot bit always worked best when you could get the pursued to do the pursuing. I knew that Jenks’s page would show Looking4Mine had checked him out and I also knew that nobody wanting to “get out of the house and have a good time” would be able to resist her beauty. It was only a matter of time before he reached out. I hoped.
My stomach was telling me lunch was getting close when the office phone rang.
***
“Camp Investigations. Your private eye to the stars.”
“Funny. You still on good terms with Judge Drake?”
“Yeah.”
“Then you better get out there in a hurry.”
“Why?”
***
The line had already gone dead. The voice had been vaguely familiar, neither friendly nor unfriendly. I took the .45 from my desk. I did not rush out the door. I had the tag number of my new friends’ truck and my next act of business was going to be running it down, finding out who had been stalking me. The voice on the phone was one I knew, yet couldn’t place. He had been aware of our relationship with Judge Drake and he had known I would go to Drake. He had used the office phone, n
ot the cell, so it was unlikely he was a friend of mine. I checked the caller ID. Private. It could be a setup, an ambush. The caller might be the one responsible for bringing in the boys from Louisiana. With Sarah in pre-school, this could be their chance.
Or Judge Drake might have stepped in it again. He had been quiet for a while, too long. Overdue. I crossed the office and looked out the window. The cracked parking lot was big, enough space for forty cars. Back in more prosperous times, it would have held the vehicles for a shift in the sock factory. That shift was now working a factory in South America, thanks to trade deals our Congress had given us. The green Cherokee was the only vehicle in the lot, parked in what had once been a handicapped space. No Dodge pickup.
I slipped into my bomber jacket and went into the hallway. To the right, the hallway ran back into the factory, but everything—aside from my office—had been boarded up for years. To the left was the door to the metal stairs. I pushed open the heavy wooden door and stood back, waiting for a rifle shot. Nothing. I checked my watch, a cheap Timex, and waited five full minutes. I didn’t posses many skills or talents, but patience was one I had in abundance. I did nothing better than anybody I knew. I popped my head out of the opening and drew it quickly back, trying to draw fire from an impatient sniper. Nothing.
I waited two more minutes before running down the stairs, the pistol dangling from my hand. I jogged to the Jeep, jumped in and fired it up. I felt a little foolish as I drove through town. The little guy might go for an ambush, but that definitely didn’t seem to be the big guy’s style. You had to prepare for what the enemy could do, not what you thought he would do. Lessons learned the hard way. Foolish was okay. Dead was not.
I kept one eye on the rearview, took a right, and another right, eventually circling the block. The streets were fairly deserted on the edge of town and nobody seemed to be following me. Back on the main road, I pushed up the speed. I had wasted enough time and if Judge Drake had indeed poked another hornet’s nest, I needed to hurry.