He punched me lightly on the shoulder. “I’m amazed we got this much of a lead. I should hire you. Apparently you’re invisible in airports.”
I grinned at the compliment, but I really couldn’t take credit for it. “I look like every other middle-aged woman. We’re an invisible class.”
Josh frowned and licked ketchup off his thumb. “You don’t really believe that, do you?”
“I know it,” I retorted. “We can operate with impunity. We look too much like people’s mothers to be suspect.”
“Not you,” he muttered, shaking his head. “No way. You’ve got something—it’s in your eyes, the way you walk.” He flushed and squinted through the windshield. “Let’s just say Skip is a lucky guy. I’ve always thought so.”
I couldn’t breathe for a second, my stomach fluttering. What was I supposed to say to that? Yet another uncomfortable moment in a vehicle. What was it about being behind a steering wheel that prompted men to loosen their tongues and reveal their emotions?
So I latched on to one of his comments that had piqued my curiosity. “Hire me? What are you thinking? Because my source of ready cash won’t last forever, and I may need to find a job.”
Josh sighed and wadded up the burger wrapper. “This thing with the FBI review. Maybe I really could get my job back, but they don’t know how to do anything except glacially, if you know what I mean. Paperwork, red tape, all requests inching up the chain of command. Lots of guys in suits sitting in air-conditioned offices, somehow making themselves necessary to the process. I’m not sure I actually want the job back now—now that I’ve had a taste of what it’s like to move more freely, be my own boss.”
“So you’re thinking of starting your own business? Wow. For what it’s worth, I’d love to write your first testimonial. You orchestrated that beautiful shakedown of Lutsenko—besides, well, everything else.”
Josh laughed. “I don’t think I’m going to advertise shakedowns in my list of services.”
“Private investigation? Personal security? Blackmail negotiations? Hostage retrieval? You could really offer the spectrum.” I grinned at him.
He nodded. “Something like that.”
I checked my watch and tapped the dashboard. “Let’s add insinuation and motivational speeches to that list.”
“You got it.”
CHAPTER 12
It was an extremely safe bet that Martin “Mart the Shark” Zimmermann, my Numero Cuatro, had his very own FBI surveillance detail. Josh and I also knew that our foray into the wilds of the San Francisco area wouldn’t go unnoticed forever. We just hadn’t wanted them—both Zimmermann and the FBI—to know we were coming until we showed up at the flagship location of Roman & Bernard Men’s Clothiers.
Actually, we rolled right past the FBI on our way toward the store’s imposing glass-plated presence, which was on a street chock-full of posh shops and upscale dining options. Josh chuckled and flicked a finger toward a dirty black Honda Civic in the middle of a long line of cars that hugged the curb in a three-hour parking zone. “They won’t be the only ones, but there’s his lead team.”
Many of the retail stores were closed, but the interspersed restaurants were open and busy. It wasn’t a tourist area, but there was still a comfortable number of couples and a few families strolling on the sidewalks. Friendly pools of yellow light from street lamps as well as the light pouring out of the open businesses made the area feel safe. A scruffy guy with a messenger bag slung across his chest and a slouch in his stance was busy texting on his phone, leaning against a lamppost.
Josh tipped his chin toward the loner. “There’s another agent. Our entrance will be well documented. We’ll need to go fast. They’ll have the store completely bugged, too, so they’ll be listening to our conversation live, unless Zimmermann knows enough to have a jammed space in there.”
“Jammed?” I murmured.
“Signal hashing. The equipment’s illegal, but easy enough to obtain, or you can make your own. Usually works in about a twenty-meter radius.”
“He’s a wily old veteran. Maybe he knows.”
“In which case, my recording device won’t work, either. So you’re going to have to be very convincing and speedy.”
I sucked in a deep breath. “Let’s just get this over with.”
Josh had executed a sedately legal left-hand turn and slowed to a stop along the side of Zimmermann’s building. “Fastest way is the most direct. All the back exits are being observed too, so let’s be legitimate and go through the front.” He punched the release button for the glove compartment and withdrew a little black case. In a flash, he’d palmed a couple slender metal instruments.
We strolled around the corner, arm in arm, joining the other leisurely, window-shopping couples.
Spotlights illuminated the well-dressed mannequins posed in the display windows, but the interior lighting deeper in the store was dimmed. Roman & Bernard’s hours were painted in an elegant script on the glass door, but I cupped my hands around my face and leaned forward, peering through the glass like a disappointed potential customer. It wasn’t great cover, but it was the best I could do while Josh stood close beside me, fiddling with the lock.
I was pretty sure the two guys in the Honda across the street and half a block up were suddenly wide awake and squawking into their radios. I cast a quick glance over my shoulder. Scruffy messenger-bag man had disappeared.
Josh is a marvel. A minute, maybe less—and we were scooting through the open door. No buzzers, no alarms. Only the quiet snick of the door as it closed behind us. Josh flipped the lock. The FBI couldn’t join us inside the building without a search warrant. One of the perks of operating independently.
Josh and I quickly moved away from the windows, sheltering in the lee of racks hung with fabric samples. If a gangster was counting that day’s illegal revenue, where would he be? Deep in the shadows of a back office. We crept in that direction, brushing against soft woolen crepe and 400-thread-count cotton shirting.
I’d expected Zimmermann to have bodyguards. It would have been stupid for a man in his position not to. But five of them—unabashedly and obviously armed—seemed over the top. They lolled on opulently upholstered sofas with their feet propped up on mahogany coffee tables in what appeared to be the private area of the store where a wife or girlfriend could observe her man’s fitting process and give subtle hints to the tailor.
I didn’t see any cracks of light sifting from under the closed doors to the changing rooms or any other sign of where Zimmermann might be. But if the bodyguards were here, so was he.
Josh poked me in the side—it was time to draw out our quarry.
I screamed.
Quite well, I thought. Lots of piercing volume, a prolonged vibrato wail that reached the upper echelons of the frequency register. If the FBI was listening in, their eardrums had just burst.
It was perfectly effective—in a heart attack sort of way. Those poor guys didn’t know what hit them. They fumbled for their holsters, tripped over each other, sent a coffee table crashing, and drew their guns, pointing them every which way. It was rather comical. The five stooges of bodyguarding.
My scream was also effective in an Alvin York turkey call sort of way. Because there he was—a nearly bald, short man wearing incredibly thick, black-rimmed glasses popped around the edge of a door I hadn’t seen.
I stepped out from behind a rack, holding a square of pinstriped charcoal gray wool. “I think Skip had a suit made out of this,” I said, rubbing the fabric between my fingers. I stepped up onto the raised round platform where customers stood when they were being measured, under the special lighting that didn’t cast unflattering double-chin shadows. In order for my plan to be effective, old Zimmermann had to know exactly who he was dealing with.
The bodyguards suddenly found something to aim at. Me.
“Whoa, boys. Whoa,” Zimmermann croaked. He held his veiny hands in front of his body—in a gesture that seemed to ward off the goons and welco
me me at the same time—and slowly approached the platform. “To what do I owe this pleasure, Ms. Ingram?”
I saw a flash of the other reason he always seemed to be surrounded by gorgeous young things in the society photos—the other reason besides abject, rampant wealth. A winkle of charm in those rheumy old eyes.
I chuckled and took his hand. He helped me off the platform.
Josh stepped out of the shadows, drawing another rapid shift in gun barrels. I held my breath, cringing against any itchy trigger fingers that might be in the group. But they held their water.
“He’s my bodyguard,” I said by way of introduction. “Surely you don’t object, since we’re clearly outnumbered.”
“Are you unarmed, sweetheart?” Zimmermann murmured the question so close to my cheek that I could feel his lukewarm breath.
I winked at him. “As unarmed as you are.”
“I’ve been expecting you. Some nosy woman called earlier, trying to get the details of my schedule from the sales staff. She one of yours?”
I assumed it was a rhetorical question.
He pulled my arm through his, clamped me to his side, and ushered me into the tiny cubbyhole of an office where he’d been squirreled away. “Believe it or not, I’m a lonely old man. I hear you had something to do with my darling Angelica deserting me.”
He nudged the door closed, and the stopwatch in my head kicked into overdrive. I hadn’t expected to be separated from Josh. But maybe the fewer witnesses, the better. I sure didn’t want all five of Zimmermann’s goons listening in too.
“Is self-serving betrayal really a trait you consider darling?” I kept my voice sweet and light and a smile on my lips. Just to take the edge off. “The idea had already rooted and was fully cultivated before I met her. I just gave her the opportunity.”
Zimmermann peered up at me with the unblinking, beady eyes of a baby bird. I could have sworn he cocked his head a fraction of an inch too. He sighed heavily and sank onto a creaky chair, his firm grip on my forearm compelling me to do the same in the chair beside him. He might be short and stooped, but he had surprising strength in those shrunken hands.
“That’s the problem with young people these days.” Zimmermann pointed across the littered desk toward a profusely sweating middle-aged man—the only other person in the room. “Which is why Morris here is my new vice president of sales.”
Morris hadn’t uttered one peep, and he certainly didn’t seem to be enjoying his promotion. He stared at us, his pale blue eyes bulging unattractively. His hands were spread flat on the messy piles of papers on the desktop as though he was worried about a gust of wind carrying them away. But his hands were shaking so much that they vibrated the papers under his palms, creating a rustling sound. His shirtsleeves were rolled to the elbow, his boring navy-blue tie askew.
Maybe he was just high-strung, or maybe my scream had been even more unsettling than I realized. Or maybe he was trying to cover the numbers printed on the pages.
Morris looked very much like a man who would do anything to avoid going to prison, which made me think that Zimmermann’s pool of loyal underlings who were also smart enough to assist in his business ventures must be extremely thin. Maybe Angelica had cleared out any potential competitors in her bid for dominance.
I pinched the edge of a paper toward the bottom of one of the messy stacks and yanked it out from under the weight of Morris’s hands. I glanced over it quickly and tossed it back onto the desk. I would have needed several hours and Clarice’s assistance to make sense of the long columns I’d seen. But there had been a lot of numerals to the left of all the decimal points. My absconding with Zimmermann’s funds that had been in Skip’s money laundering accounts had probably only been a temporary setback for him. The FBI was about to score, big time.
But they’d been greedy—again. Sitting on Zimmermann, waiting to arrest him in case he turned up even more evidence or connections they could use. Hadn’t they realized he was closing up shop, for good? They were giving him time to cover some of his tracks, to plot his plea deal.
When Zimmermann hadn’t immediately bailed after Angelica’s arrest, I’d known he was contemplating cutting his losses. He was an old man, and he probably needed medical care. He wouldn’t last long on the run, and he wouldn’t last long in prison. But he could still throw his weight around before he went down, if he was inclined to.
“Enough of the chit-chat,” I said, even though I was the only one who’d said anything that might remotely qualify as chit-chat. “I have a feeling the suits outside are on the phone to their judge as we speak. No doubt, I’ve bumped up their time line. But you were well aware that your retirement from organized crime was imminent, so let’s hash out the details, maybe spare Morris here some heartburn.” I waved my hand toward the poor schmuck. “Whatever you agree to with the feds later will be gravy.”
Once again Zimmermann’s beady eyes studied me, the lids lowered like a lizard’s. Then I got a half-nod to go with the glare. “Wish you worked for me,” he muttered.
And then I talked—fast and with as much persuasion as I could muster. He had only a few options, but I didn’t consider any of them exclusive. No reason he couldn’t help me while also cooperating with the feds.
Organized crime kingpins are a lot like dominoes. They know their rank in relation to one another, constantly keeping score and tussling over territory. But when one topples, he creates a ripple effect, both up and down the chain. Sometimes the littlest things can zigzag all the way up the hierarchy. I needed a few little things to line up just right and create a big thing, like puzzle pieces.
Less than five minutes later, Morris was dumping papers into cardboard file boxes, emptying file cabinets and the trash can. The bodyguards formed a water-brigade line from the tiny office to the shop’s incinerator, passing the boxes along toward their destruction.
I think the FBI should track all retail businesses that have an incinerator on the premises. Might be a clue, don’t you think? Regardless, Zimmermann was prepared, and Morris had already done much of the preliminary work.
Zimmermann planted a dry, hard kiss on my cheek and shoved me toward a side door. “Get out of here,” he growled. “Good luck.”
Josh was on my heels as we crashed through the door into an alley. “This way.” He tugged on my arm, and we raced between the ugly backsides of two buildings to the street and the Kia still parked innocently beside Roman & Bernard Men’s Clothiers.
We tumbled into the car, and Josh jumped on the accelerator with a squeal of tires.
“No sirens,” I panted.
“There won’t be.” Josh yanked the wheel hard to the right, sending us rocketing down another major shopping street. “They’re deciding who to go after. Us or whoever’s still inside the building. They won’t have the manpower for both on such short notice. They’re probably still reeling from the shock of seeing you running down that alley since your scream sounded like a murder was going down. But Zimmermann’s too valuable to lose, and they know you’ll return to Mayfield. We’ve given them a lot to think about, and I’m hoping they’ll concentrate on the building and its occupants. But keep your eyes peeled.”
So I shifted sideways, braced myself between the door and the center console, wrapped my arms around the headrest, and watched our tail.
Josh seemed to be enjoying himself. We flashed down dark streets, peeled around corners, sped up, slowed down, ran a couple red lights. I was extremely grateful I hadn’t eaten dinner. We pulled to a squealing stop in front of a lot full of cars and surrounded by a high chain link fence.
The gate had been rolled back just enough to allow a minivan to park in the opening and fill the gap. A hefty man emerged from the minivan’s driver’s side. As he stepped into the pool of light cast by a lone flickering mercury vapor light, I could see a set of keys dangling loosely in his right hand.
“Out,” Josh commanded.
In the long minute it took me to get disentangled and free of the Ki
a, Josh had exchanged keys with the man and removed my carry-on bag from the trunk.
I was still breathing hard as we climbed into the minivan.
“Who is that?” I asked, watching the large man ease the Kia inside the fenced enclosure as we pulled away.
This time Josh drove like a responsible family man who had several sleeping children buckled into car seats in the back. “A friend.”
“Was the Kia stolen? Or this van?” I could feel the cracks in the vinyl upholstery beneath me. The minivan had seen better days.
“Nope.” Josh’s face was hard to read in the rippled light cast by the streetlights we drove under, but I could hear the grin in his voice. “Impounded. The owners didn’t claim their vehicles in the time allowed, so they now belong to the towing company to do with as they please. My friend has an out-of-state buyer lined up for the Kia. It’ll be loaded on a flatbed truck, covered, and get delivered over the weekend.”
Josh had one more surprise for me. One that left me wanting to offer that next time—if there ever was a next time, and I sincerely hoped not—I would make the hotel reservations myself.
Because the place where we spent the night didn’t require reservations. Mostly because the typical guests didn’t stay for more than an hour or two at a shot. If you get my drift.
CHAPTER 13
Amazingly—or maybe not, considering how crazy the day had been—I slept. Hard. Completely lights-out unconscious. In my clothes. Because there was no way I was touching those sheets with my bare skin.
The mattress was of the soft, squishy, ancient, so thoroughly worn that all the springs had sprung variety. Which meant I was embedded deep in the ticking as though pressed there by a heavy weight when I awoke, sticky with both drool and sweat, surrounded by enough shouting and banging and cacophonous thumping and thunderous shaking to make me think I’d mistakenly taken a room in the wall of Jericho.
Tried & True (Mayfield Cozy Mystery Book 5) Page 9