FIRST DROP: Charlie Fox book four

by Zoe Sharp

  Livingston Brown III had seemed an unlikely friend for a computer nerd like Keith Pelzner. I’d wondered if their paths would have crossed at all except for the accidental fact that the company Keith was working for had rented the property next to Brown’s, but the two of them seemed to hit it off strangely well.

  Brown was a tall slightly gangling figure, tanned to the colour of a pecan and just as wrinkled. He was one of those perfect adverts for why you should use sunblock and big floppy hats in this kind of climate. He wasn’t wearing either today and the perspiration pasted thin wisps of grey hair to his scalp.

  “Hi there,” he said, puffing, as he caught me up. “Thought I’d missed ya. Carly, isn’t it?”

  “Charlie, sir,” I said. “Hello, Mr Brown.” I kept my voice polite but noncommittal, as though he was keeping me from some minor task.

  Now he’d got me, he seemed a little lost as to what to do with me. “I saw the truck this morning,” he said at last. “Couldn’t get over the fact that Keith never said he was moving out sooner.” He pulled out a voluminous handkerchief and blew his nose loudly, peering at me over the top of it. “So, you forget something?”

  “You saw them go?” I said, sharper than I’d intended. “What time was this?”

  “Oh, well now, lemme see,” he said, so slowly I could have rattled him. “Well, I do believe I’d just had my midmorning swim. Fifty lengths every day, come rain or shine, did I ever tell you that?”

  “Yes sir,” I said dryly. He’d mentioned his daily constitutional on both of the occasions we’d met over the last couple of days, but I’d already worked out that men as rich as Livingston Brown III did not accurately recall names or conversations with their neighbours’ staff unless you gave them undue reason to. It wasn’t rudeness particularly, he’d just had money for so long that he couldn’t remember what it was like talking to people who dared interrupt his ramblings.

  Now, he beamed at me and stuffed the handkerchief back into his pocket. “Well now, yes, I heard the sound of the truck arriving and I came out for a little look-see, ‘cos it’s pretty quiet round here. Must have been right around eleven.”

  Eleven. Right about when Trey and I were getting off the wooden coaster. Right about when Oakley man had been casually lingering in the gift shop and observed the kid’s temper tantrum. Right about when he’d smiled at me with such apparent sympathy and friendliness.

  “Who was with the truck?” I demanded now. “Did you see them?”

  Brown frowned, unaccustomed to quick-fire questions. I wondered how he’d managed to accrue the personal fortune through shrewd property dealings that he was rumoured to possess. Maybe he just delegated to smart cookies and let them get on with it.

  “Well, just a couple of ordinary-looking guys, I guess,” he said, in the kind of doubtful tone that discredits eyewitnesses the world over. “Like I said, I came out and there was this U-Haul truck backed right on up to the front steps.”

  “And you didn’t see any sign of Mr Pelzner?”

  “Oh yeah,” he said, surprising me. “Keith came on over to the fence when he saw me out front. Seemed in kind of a hurry – not like him. He’s always been a laid-back guy, y’know? Anyways, he said as how he was having to move out kinda unexpected.”

  “Did you see anyone else – Jim Whitmarsh, or Sean?”

  Brown rubbed the back of his head, fluffing his hair up from its comb-over style across the top of his scalp. “Sean?” he repeated, puzzled. “Oh, you mean the Brit guy? No, no, I don’t think so. Come to think of it, I didn’t see any of the usual guys either. Just the ones with the truck, I think.”

  A nondescript beige Buick saloon turned in to the end of the street then and started to slowly cruise down in our direction. Inside were two suited men wearing sunglasses. Neither had their seatbelt on. They both had big necks and square jaws and could possibly have been double glazing salesmen who liked to work out a lot, but I wouldn’t have bet on it.

  “Did Mr Pelzner say where he was going, or give you a forwarding address?” I asked quickly, starting to edge towards the Mercury. If it hadn’t already been telling me it was time to go, my mind was now screaming “leave!” repeatedly in my inner ear.

  “No, no he didn’t, which I must admit I thought was kinda strange, but he did ask me if I’d pass on a key to the realtor. He seemed kinda nervous, y’know? On edge. Said they’d be stopping by this afternoon to see about leasing the place out for the summer. I guess they might know. I think I maybe have a card some place in the house if you wanna come in for a mo—”

  “No!” I said. The Buick had come to a halt about halfway down the street. It was hard to tell if the two men were watching me, because I couldn’t see their eyes, but they were sitting very, very still.

  “No,” I said again, less vehement this time as I took in his offended face. “Look Mr Brown, I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I have to go now. I don’t want to keep you standing out here.”

  He was around four or five strides away at that point. Too far for me to be sure of getting him into cover if things went bad now. We were both way too exposed.

  “Oh, well OK,” he said, still looking a little put out.

  Just get back inside, you stupid old git, I wanted to yell at him. Get off the battleground! I breathed in, rolled my shoulders. Under my shirt the SIG had already stuck to my back with sweat that wasn’t entirely brought on by the heat. It wasn’t in a holster and I wondered how long it would take me to bring it out.

  Longer, I calculated grimly, than it would take the two men to draw and fire the guns I just knew they were carrying. If you can’t run then take the passenger down first. He’s more likely to get out of the car faster than the driver.

  I took another couple of steps towards the Mercury, keys already out in my hand, when Brown called a final question.

  “Say, young lady, weren’t you supposed to be looking after Trey today?”

  Christ, the old boy had a death wish. “Erm yeah,” I said, glancing back at him as I wrenched the car door open. “I’ve left him with a friend.” I thought of Joyce. At the moment she was the nearest thing I’d got.

  “Oh,” Brown said, clearly nonplussed at my cavalier attitude towards proper childcare. “Oh well, that’s OK then I guess. You take care now, Carly.”

  I didn’t bother to correct him again, just jumped in and cranked the Mercury into life. In the rear-view mirror I saw Brown shaking his head as he turned back into his own driveway. I waited until he’d got another few steps towards comparative safety and hoped that, if the guys in the Buick were as dodgy as I feared, they wouldn’t mistake the old guy as one of my allies and go after him as well.

  I needn’t have worried on Brown’s account. As soon as I put the car into gear I had their full attention. I tried not to make direct eye-contact as I passed within a few feet of the other car but it was impossible not to let my eyes slide sideways, just a little.

  The two men were craning to see into the Mercury, lifting up in their seats as they did so, making no bones about it. It was immediately obvious that I wasn’t the one who interested them. They were checking to see the kid wasn’t hiding in the back. When they saw he wasn’t they swung the Buick in a tyre-squealing circle and hooked it onto my tail.

  It wasn’t subtle but they knew, just as I did, that I couldn’t leave Trey where he was indefinitely. Sooner or later I was going to have to make a move to collect him.

  And when I did, the game was going to be over.

  ***

  It had to go on record as one of the slowest car chases ever. Instinct made me turn left at the top of the street, trying to slow down my pursuers by making them follow me across four lanes of traffic to copy the manoeuvre. Fat chance. They pulled out smoothly with only two cars between us.

  Damn, but driving on the right was taking some getting my head round.

  I trundled through the next two sets of lights sticking bang on the speed limit. Bearing in mind Oakley man’s profession, I didn�
�t want to risk getting pulled by the cops.

  The only experience I had of American traffic stops came through reality TV shows and the movies. If they were anything to go by, even if the officers involved were on the level I was likely to get hauled out of the car and subjected to a pat-down search. I’d no idea if the gun I was carrying wedged into the small of my back was officially registered, but even if it was, it certainly wasn’t in my name.

  Mind you, it always seemed to be the State Troopers of the Highway Patrol who engaged in that kind of gung-ho behaviour, rather than the city police or Sheriff’s department. I vaguely recalled that Oakley man had been with the city police. Just how interconnected were the various departments? Was he working on his own, or was someone else lurking in the shadows pulling his strings? I didn’t have a clue.

  I kept driving, the area taking a step down with each passing block. My brain was frantically concocting and dumping solutions to my current situation. The beige Buick had moved up to one car behind me, keeping station. Checking in my mirrors, I could see the guy in the passenger seat talking on a mobile phone. If they were calling in reinforcements I couldn’t afford to delay much longer.

  I had to do something, but what?

  Then something caught my eye up ahead on my left. Every little roadside shop and store, it seemed, stated their business on a sign about twenty feet up in the air, like all their customers were incredibly tall.

  “We service and repair Harleys,” this one proclaimed in hand-painted letters that were peeling at the edges. “Bikes bought for cash.”

  It struck a chord. I was a dedicated biker myself and had been so for far longer than I’d held a licence to drive a car. If bikers in the US were anything like they were in the UK then I might have found an ally.

  I took a flyer, diving across the road and into the parking area without bothering to indicate as I did so. A driver coming the other way blared his horn and shook a desultory fist, but it was more force of habit than passion. The Buick pulled up a little further along on the other side of the road. The two men twisted in their seats and calmly waited to see what I was up to.

  The business I’d picked looked run-down and slightly seedy, which was exactly what I’d been hoping for. There was no showroom as such, just a grubby workshop with a huge roller-shutter door to one side, halfway open. Stacks of rusting exhaust pipes decorated the entrance and all the windows had bars on them.

  I jumped out of the Mercury and hurried into the workshop. The floor felt sticky underfoot and a hard rock station was playing on a slightly off-tune radio somewhere in the back. Two of the biggest guys I’ve ever seen were working on a stripped-down Electra-Glide with severe front-end damage, while three more blokes of equal size stood around and watched and drank beer.

  They were discussing something that involved use of the word “fuck” at least twice every time they opened their mouths, and some of them were being monosyllabic. When they spotted me they shut up fast.

  “Oh my God, do you have a phone?” I cried, racking an edge of hysteria into my voice as I rushed forward. “I need to call the cops. Oh God!”

  “Yeah, we got a phone,” one of them said slowly, although his manner clearly said that fact didn’t mean I was going to get to use it. The others exchanged nervous glances at any mention of the law. “What’s the trouble?”

  “They hit him and just never stopped!” I said, pressing my hands to my face. “I didn’t know what to do, and now I think they’re following me!”

  “Who hit who?” asked the biggest guy of the bunch with mild interest, as though any fight he wasn’t personally involved in wasn’t high on his list.

  “Two guys in a beige Buick,” I said. “They ran a red light and took out some poor guy on a Harley, just wiped him clean out. And they never even slowed down! I need to call the cops.”

  The big guy forgot all about the next mouthful of beer he’d been just about to take from his long-neck bottle of Budweiser. Suddenly I had their utter and complete attention.

  “A Harley?” he demanded. “What kinda Harley?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, wringing my hands in a suitably girlie way. “It was just one of those big gorgeous bikes, you know?”

  “It wasn’t kinda purple was it?” another of the group asked.

  I made a show of deep thought, frowning. “Erm, yeah, it might have been.”

  “Fuck,” the same man said, taking a step back and shaking his head like a dog coming out of water. “Must be Brad. He left here no more’n five minutes ago.”

  “Is that the two sons of bitches over there?” growled the first guy, pointing to the car across the street.

  “Oh my God, yes,” I said, feigning terror. “That’s them! They must know I saw the whole thing and I’m going to report them.”

  “Don’t you worry none about the cops, lady,” said the big guy, carefully putting his Bud down and picking up a tyre iron. “You just leave ‘em to us.”

  The five of them walked out of the workshop and headed straight for the two men in the Buick, uncaring of the traffic that squealed and swerved to avoid them. My pursuers took one look at the grim intent and the makeshift weaponry that was bearing down on them, and took off.

  The gang ran back to the workshop and jumped onto the grubby assortment of bitsa bikes that were parked up outside, leaving me standing alone next to the Mercury. I watched them give chase until the Buick made a frantic right turn at the next signal and the convoy disappeared from view.

  “There’s one thing you can say about us bikers,” I murmured to myself. “When the shit hits the fan we certainly stick together.”

  Then I got back into my car, pulled out in the opposite direction and headed sedately back to the diner.

  ***

  I found Trey elevated to a stool at the counter, recounting a frankly ludicrous story about the fantastic exploits of his recently deceased mythical dog. He had Joyce, another of the waitresses, and two of the other customers as his audience. I walked in on the tail end of it and had to suppress a wince at the sheer lack of believability.

  Nothing like keeping a low profile, Trey . . .

  Joyce’s expression when she caught sight of me showed she clearly knew something was amiss with the whole setup, even if her younger workmate was proving more gullible. When he realised I was standing behind him Trey bounced out of his seat and shut up, looking more than a little guilty.

  I slipped Joyce a tip out of all proportion to the cost of the food Trey had managed to consume in the time I’d been away. She tucked the folded bill away into the pocket of her apron so fast it was almost sleight of hand, but her face stayed cool.

  “So, what’s up?” Trey demanded as we walked out of the diner. “You went home, yeah? Is Dad OK?”

  I didn’t trust myself to answer him until I’d unlocked the car and we were back inside, then my temper flashed.

  “For fuck’s sake Trey! Do the words ‘acting suspiciously’ mean anything to you at all?” I threw at him. “When I left you all you had to do was look miserable and say as little as possible. Why you should find that difficult, God only knows! You’ve certainly managed it perfectly well all day. But no, you had to go shooting your mouth off.”

  The shell grew back around him almost instantly. I watched it harden over and cursed myself inwardly. Oh great, now we have the sulks again.

  I sat back in my seat and let my breath out. “OK,” I said, trying to start again, calm, sensible. “Yes, I went back to the house. There was nobody there. Not only that, but the place has been cleared out – no clothes, no personal possessions. There’s just the furniture left. It’s like you were never there.”

  “What about Dad?” Trey asked, sounding subdued.

  “I’m sorry, there was no sign of him,” I said, as gently as I could. “I ran into one of your neighbours – Mr Brown. He reckoned he saw Keith loading up a U-Haul truck this morning. Even asked him to give a key to an estate agent.” I paused, flicked the kid a sideway
s glance. “Did you know your father was planning on moving out today?”

  Trey shook his head mutely and that was the last I could get out of him. I didn’t think telling him about the two guys in the Buick was going to gain me anything other than scaring him half to death, so I kept their part in the proceedings to myself. With another sigh I started the Mercury up again and pulled out onto the road.

  It was a little after four o’clock. Traffic was starting to heavy up for the evening rush hour and the quality of the light was already changing, softening down from the usual harsh brightness. I’d discovered that night arrives fast in Florida. You get maybe twenty minutes of sunset around six-thirty, then the day’s dead.

  The idea of driving around all night didn’t appeal to me. Not in a car that the bad guys could easily recognise. Particularly not with Trey in the passenger seat. We needed shelter and somewhere to hide, and the sooner the better.