“I never saw her,” he said, still gasping for air. “It was a woman, she talked to Hank, my partner, to set it up. Said to get rid of you, and if we did it by yesterday, there was an extra five grand in it. We was supposed to meet here for the cash.”
“Go on.”
“She gave us your name and the address of that bar where you live. Price was ten grand, plus the five bonus. But you was a harder case than we figured.”
How insulting. My life was only worth fifteen thousand dollars?
“How’d she find you?”
“I guess she asked around. Hank and I, we do some … security type work now and then. Rainbow fixed it for us to meet her at Club Capers to begin with. But only Hank came because I had to take the wife to the doctor.”
Rainbow was a small-time Wilmington bookie who probably didn’t know the woman wanted a professional hit. Although I knew of him because my partner Rita liked to bet on college football, Rainbow didn’t know me. In his world, men like these were utilized to scare someone into paying gambling debts. Most likely, the bookie had pocketed a few hundred bucks for arranging the meeting and gone happily on his way, not realizing his referral would get one man killed and land the other one in jail.
“Where were you the night Hank paid me a visit?”
“I was there, outside the place. Keepin’ a lookout. We didn’t know about the dog or the old man bein’ there. Thought it was just you,” he said, still working to fill his lungs with air.
A professional would have known exactly how many people and animals lived in a building and what their typical routines were. For that matter, a pro wouldn’t work with a buddy, especially one who’d run scared at the sound of a barking dog. Even for amateurs, they’d done a pretty lousy job. Not that I was complaining.
“And, you came to Club Capers why?” I asked incredulously. The job wasn’t done. Did he really think someone would arrive with a bundle of cash for a job well-botched?
“She called me. Said we missed but the price was up to twenty grand if I finished the job alone. She was supposed to give me five as a deposit.” He studied a kitten that picked at some stray garbage near the foot of the Dumpster. “I needed the money. I’m into Rainbow for five alone, and the ex is after me for back alimony …”
His voice trailed off as he realized the absurdity of what he was telling me. That paying off his petty debts was justification for trying to take my life. Looking at him with disgust, a thought nudged its way into my conscious. How had the woman known I was still alive? And that Hank was dead? It hadn’t been in the paper.
“She called you on your cell phone?”
He rubbed the cuffed wrist with his free hand. “Yeah. I called the number back to ask her a question, but some dude answered. It was a pay phone at an Exxon station.”
“How did you know who to look for today, to collect your advance?”
“She said for me sit on the fifth stool at the bar, same as we was supposed to do to collect our fee anyways. And she didn’t say it would be her meeting me today. Just that somebody would bring me the money.”
“What’s your name?”
“Horace.”
“Horace, I’ve got a nice present for you.” I flipped open my cell phone.
“Why did I listen to Hank? We’re not hit men. I can’t do time again. I can’t.”
I uncuffed Horace from the Dumpster, recuffed his hands together, and walked him back into the Capers bar. Bill had rejoined Ox at the table and they were finishing their hamburgers. Horace and I joined them.
“Ox, Bill,” I said, “meet Horace.” He situated himself awkwardly in a chair, hands locked behind him, and stared into nothingness. If surrounding patrons thought it odd to see a handcuffed man at our table, they didn’t show it.
“Go screw yourself, Horace. Better yet, wait and let your cell mate do it for you,” Bill said.
Ox and I looked at each other with raised eyebrows.
“Guess he doesn’t like the thought of some slob trying to kill you, Jersey,” Ox said.
“I really don’t,” Bill agreed. “It’s so unrefined.”
I surveyed the club and didn’t see anyone or anything unusual. Nearly nude girls circulated, working the lunch crowd for rips.
“Nobody else showed,” Ox said.
Bill asked for rea refills. Ox finished his meal and mine. I called Dirk and told him there was a package at Club Capers with his name on it. More specifically, the partner of the last package that he’d removed from my living room floor.
“This one still breathing?”
“Yep.”
“Your retirement is turning out to be rather eventful, Jersey. If you keep serving up criminals on a china platter, we’re going to have to put you on the staff roster.”
“Thanks for the offer, bur no thanks,” I told him. “I would appreciate it, though, if you’d return some of my handcuffs. I think you owe me four or five pairs by now.”
“A cruiser will be on the way to collect the package and I’m about ten minutes behind them. The handcuffs may rake a bit longer. I’ll have to requisition them.”
NINETEEN
Rainbow was easy to find and Ox said he’d enjoy accompanying me to pay the bookie a visit, on the hunch that the woman who had hired Hank and Horace was also one of Jared’s kidnappers. If nothing else, Rainbow could give us a description.
We had dropped an unusually subdued Bill at his condo after lunch and I didn’t get the usual good-bye kiss. He may have been rethinking his wedding wishes. I hoped he was. It would make things much easier.
Rainbow’s hangout was a sports bar called Tippy’s, and he was there often enough to claim a corner booth as his own. People called him Rainbow because his hair ranged from blond to bright orange to red. He paid out quickly when he lost, Rita told me, but he also had a reputation for collecting quickly when he won. According to my partner, he took sports bets from fifty up to two thousand dollars. On request, he would take much larger bets, which indicated he had a financial backer—possibly someone based in Atlantic City.
When Ox and I slid into his booth, a man resembling a mature Redwood tree instantaneously appeared, hand beneath his jacket, prepped to draw a weapon. He stood, waiting on instructions from Rainbow. Ox raised an eyebrow in amusement and I wondered why a small-time bookie needed a bodyguard. Maybe in his world it was a prestige symbol, like wearing Gucci loafers.
“This is Dick and I’m Jane,” I said to Rainbow. Up close, his hair was an even brighter shade of orange than it had first appeared. His skin looked pale in contrast, but his greenish eyes were alert, calm. I guessed his age to be around fifty. “We need your help,” I told him.
He nodded his head, indicating the Redwood could leave before returning his attention to us. “I’ve had a few threats lately. Just being cautious,” he explained. “How can I help you?” There was a slight hint of an Irish accent behind a smooth voice.
“We’re here because you recently hooked a woman up with some hired muscle. Hank had the misfortune to point his gun at my dog while he was trying to kill me and got himself shot to death. His buddy Horace fared a little better—he landed in jail instead of the morgue. I want to know who hired them.”
Rainbow got whiter beneath his already blanched skin.
“Excuse me?” He sat up with genuine disbelief. “Hank and Horace tried to kill you?”
I kept my eyes on Rainbow. There was no need to repeat myself. A cheerleader type appeared at our table, wearing a skimpy top and tight black bike shorts. Ox ordered beers for us. Sensing tension at the table, she retreated quickly. Taking in the scene, Ox’s eyes roamed Tippy’s. It was a comfortable place with a clientele of men watching sports on strategically placed televisions and women flirting with the men who watched sports.
Rainbow sank down in his seat, arms crossed defensively across his chest. “Look, if you know who I am, then you understand I don’t deal in that kind of thing. I’d never hook somebody up for a hired hit. I don’t even kn
ow any professional hit men.”
I imagined that he probably did, but didn’t pursue the matter.
“Perhaps the woman didn’t make it clear to you what she wanted,” Ox said.
The cheerleader returned with two mugs of beer and a bowl of pretzels. She’d also brought Rainbow a bourbon on the rocks and a cola in a separate glass. He downed half the glass of cola in one take before sipping the whiskey.
“Don’t like them mixed,” he explained. “Ruins the carbonation.”
I wasn’t interested in his drinking habits. “You want to tell us about her?”
“I tell you what I know, you’ll leave me out of it?” Rainbow was accustomed to negotiating. A man with his career never gave up something for nothing. Instinct told him it would behoove him to cooperate, so he wasn’t going to ask for too much. But he had to ask for something.
“Sure. No hassles for you.”
“The woman showed up at my booth one afternoon, like you two just did. I’d never seen her before. Said she needed somebody to help her out with a—how’d she phrase it—a security problem. She needed help with a security problem.” He did the double-glass drink thing again. “Said she needed someone who didn’t mind breaking a few rules and that she needed them immediately.”
“Why did she ask you?” Ox said.
“Don’t know, didn’t ask.”
A couple of guys wearing denim jeans and Duke University T-shirts approached the booth to place a bet, but stopped short when they saw Ox. “We’ll catch you later, man,” one of them said.
“I’ll be here,” Rainbow agreed and turned his attention back to me. “She was a looker, you know? I figured she had problems with somebody stalking her. An ex maybe. Something like that. So I turned her on to Hank and Horace. They work as a team and have taken care of me when I needed to, ah, persuade someone to pay up. I’m real sorry to hear about Hank. He was a good guy.”
A good guy who didn’t minding shooting a complete stranger. “I’m sure.”
“What did she look like?” Ox asked.
“Tall, curvy. Never took off her sunglasses. Long jet-black hair, bangs. A knockout. Even beneath all that hair and the glasses, she was beautiful. I got a woodie just talking to her.”
“Could she have worn a wig?” Ox said.
Rainbow shrugged by cocking his head.
“What color were her eyebrows?”
“Not sure. Lighter than the hair, maybe? They were mostly covered by the tinted glasses. Plus, I wasn’t looking at her eyebrows, if you know what I mean.” Rainbow finished his cola and bourbon, separately. “Anyway, that was it. I told her how to get in touch with the guys, she pressed a couple of C-notes into my pants pocket, and she left.”
“Your pants pocket?” I asked.
A faint smear of pink appeared across each pasty cheek. “Yeah. She leaned across the table, like she was going to kiss me or something, and stuffed the bills into my jeans pocket. I haven’t seen her since.”
“When was that?” I said.
“Lemme think. Atlanta was playing Florida, lost by two. It was four days ago.”
The three of us sat in silence, drinking and contemplating. It was something to go on, but not much. Wilmington was full of beautiful women, but we only needed the one who was furtively moving pieces on Chesterfield’s game board. The one who wanted me dead and out of the way. Or, perhaps the beautiful woman who was working for someone else that wanted me dead and out of the way. There wasn’t any more information to be gleaned at the moment, so we finished our beers and stood to leave.
“I’m out of it then?” Rainbow said, wisely choosing not to ask why somebody wanted me dead. He earned his living by taking people’s bets, not nosing his way into their businesses.
“As long as you’ve been straight with me,” I said.
“I’ve been straight with you.”
I handed the bookie a card. “You hear from her again, call me.”
As we walked away, Rainbow said, “By the way, I think her name might be Theresa or Alecia. Maybe Lisa. I definitely heard an ‘isa’ in there. Somebody called her mobile and I could hear them through the headset. A guy. He was talking real loud before she hung up on him, which was right after she realized who it was.”
Another morsel of information to process. I thanked him. The streaks of blond, orange, and red hair nodded in acknowledgment.
“So, what’s your guiding spirit telling you now?” I asked Ox as he drove us back to the Block in the Benz. It was yet another delightful summer day in Wilmington—the kind of day that put people in a good mood—but I wasn’t appreciative of the weather. All I could think about was the possibility of facing Samuel Chesterfield after he’d learned that his son was dead. I hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
“I don’t know what my guiding spirit thinks about the mess you’re in, but I’m thinking that this Social Insecurity virus is going to activate tomorrow. You’d better hurry up and figure out something soon.”
“Gee, thanks,” I said.
“Anytime.” Ox showed me his brilliant smile, the one that gave me a warm feeling every time I saw it, even if he was being sarcastic.
“I’m wondering about the time frame, when the woman contacted Rainbow.”
“Four days ago. That was after the accountant took a bullet,” Ox said.
As usual, we were on the same wavelength. Darlene was murdered for no apparent reason, but she might have known something since she was Chesterfield’s personal assistant. Eddie Flowers was killed because he had discovered something amiss at Chesterfield Financial. I was next on the list because I was getting close to figuring out what that something was. Probably, it was the same person—or people—who wanted the three of us out of the way.
We broke free of heavy traffic and Ox stepped on the accelerator. “Is Trish still keeping an eye and ear on the senator’s beach house for you?”
“Far as I know. I haven’t heard anything from her lately. But I usually never do, until she has something worthwhile.” Trish was good at what she did because nobody ever suspected that she was an investigator. Just like me, she could play the ditzy, helpless female role to a tee. Unlike me, she could happily do surveillance for days.
“I think you’ll be hearing from her soon,” Ox said.
On cue, my mobile rang. The incoming number on the display told me it was Trish. I eyed him, wondering how he knew. He shrugged, as though making a prediction that metamorphosed into fact was no biggie.
“Hello?” I said into the flip-phone.
“Two women paid a visit to the Ralls kid at the senator’s beach house about half an hour ago. They arrived together in a white Buick LaSabre. Both were maybe in their late thirties, one bleached-blond and the other had on a floppy hat so I couldn’t tell what color her hair was. I didn’t get a great look at either one of them through the binoculars,” Trish reported.
“What else?” I asked. She wouldn’t have called unless there was more.
“What’s weird is that the car isn’t in the senator’s driveway even though there is plenty of room. It’s parked three doors down, in front of a vacant rental house.”
“You get photos?”
“Of course I got photos. And a read on the plate.” Trish recited the number to me. “Incidentally, Jersey, my boyfriend tuned up this clunker van of yours. You owe me forty-seven dollars for parts. Labor was free.”
“I imagine it was. You think you could find yourself a nice home-security expert next, Trish? Because I’m going to be updating my security system at the Block by adding cameras.”
“It might help if you actually turned your security system on.”
“For your information, I’m going to start activating the system every night.”
“Good. For your information, I date men because I’m attracted to them. Not to get work done.”
“Right. Does your Honda have that new sunroof yet?”
“It’s actually called a moon roof, thank you very much.”
&
nbsp; “I’m on my way there,” I told her. “Can you stay put and keep your eyelids up?”
“Nothing I’d rather be doing than your surveillance,” she said.
“That’s because you’re so gloriously good at it, Trish. See you in twenty minutes.”
Since Ox was already driving us back to the Block, I asked if he wanted to take a detour. Like an insurance policy, he was good to have along, just in case. Twice before, I’d asked him to join the Barnes Agency as a partner, and twice he’d graciously declined. He didn’t need the money, he said, and besides, who would run the Block? Despite not wanting to officially be on the agency’s payroll, he willingly jumped in to help whenever I asked—and sometimes when I didn’t.
“Happy to detour,” Ox said. “Where we headed?”
“Senator Sigmund Ralls’s beach house, where his son Walton lives.”
He made a few turns and pointed the Benz in the direction of Wrightsville Beach. “The one who got kicked out of the Citadel and is into computers?” Like Spud, Ox had been kept up to date on the Chesterfield case.
“That’s the one. It seems he’s had a visit from a couple of women. But oddly, they parked three houses away.”
“Two women who didn’t want to be seen at the house,” Ox thought aloud.
“Not your typical partying teenagers. Who are they?”
“Good question.”
“Can’t you summon the spirits?”
“They’re on break.”
I reached Dirk on his mobile phone and he obliged my request for a tag check. The Buick was a rental. Either the women had flown in from out of town, or they were locals who didn’t want to be seen in their own vehicle. Which didn’t narrow things down at all.
The short drive to Wrightsville Beach was dotted with sleepy residential communities and remnants of farmland that were now overgrown with wild vegetation, and the peaceful afternoon sped past while I sat deep in thought. It had rained the night before and the roadside trees, freshly bathed, glowed a healthy green. Even the tall, skinny Carolina pines sparkled and seemed to wave as we passed. We were just crossing the Intracoastal Waterway bridge that led to the beach when Trish called again.
T. Lynn Ocean - Jersey Barnes 01 - Southern Fatality Page 20