Sneak and Rescue

by Shirl Henke

  After that failed to yield a witness, they divided up the blocks and began ringing doorbells. Matt’s ingratiating charm put even the most suspicious blue-haired elderly widow at ease. Small and smiley-faced, Sam employed her Irish charm with equally good results. The problem was that no one had seen the two gunmen leave the Mustang. Just as the sun started to descend over the Miami skyline, Sam gave Matt a buzz on her cell. They decided to call it a day, neither of them having had any luck. The Charger was parked where Jefferson dead-ended at Eleventh.

  Sam saw Matt approaching the battered Dodge from across the street. Directly in front of her was a small faded yellow house on the corner. The owner had been away when she’d tried earlier and the single-unit dwelling had a clear view of the street from the second story. Now someone was peering between the slats of the upstairs blinds.

  “Oh, what the hell,” she muttered, waving to him, indicating that she was going to give it another go. Matt climbed into the car to wait.

  The yard was overgrown with mimosa trees and honeysuckle vines. The stucco walls of the low fence surrounding it seemed barely able to support the weight of low-hanging branches growing over them. Sam opened the tall, rusty wrought iron gate which squeaked in protest. She ducked beneath the limbs of the flowering trees and barely put her finger on the buzzer when the heavy wooden door swung open. An elderly woman with sharp dark eyes looked out at her.

  “Hi ya, dearie. If you’re selling somethin’, I gave at the office,” she said with a chuckle. She was expensively dressed in designer-logo golf shorts and a matching tee, and her hair was well cut to show off what looked like natural silver-white highlights.

  “No, ma’am, I’m not. I was wondering if you were home last night. Around two in the morning a tan Mustang pulled in by the park.” She turned to the place where the police report indicated it had been found.

  “I heard the cops towed it away this morning while I was at the golf course. We played until around two. That must’ve been some hullabaloo. Junkers left on the street here all the time, parked illegally, too, and the fuzz don’t do a thing about it. What was so special about this one?”

  “The two men inside it tried to run me off the causeway. They had a getaway car stashed here to pick them up after that didn’t work out,” Sam said, watching the old lady’s eyes grow round. Her sun-lined face split into an excited grin as she reached out a thin veiny hand and practically snatched Sam through the doorway.

  “No kiddin? Why would a couple of bums like them want to hurt a nice girl like you?” she asked, releasing her grip on Sam’s wrist and ushering her inside the dark little foyer.

  “You saw them?” Sam’s heartbeat picked up. At last, a break. “What did they look like?” she asked.

  “Say, you ain’t a cop, are you?” the older woman asked, suddenly suspicious. “I don’t like cops. They roust carneys, shake ’em down.”

  Even though that didn’t exactly track, Sam pulled out her PI license. “My name’s Sam Ballanger and I’m trying to keep those guys from killing a teenage boy.”

  “I raised a couple of teenage boys myself. Lucky for them, they grew out of it. But I was tempted to kill ’em more than once, believe me. Say, where are my manners, Sam? I’m Lola Swift.” She went with quick, birdlike movements into a living room filled with bric-a-brac that cluttered every cabinet and table. The walls were decorated with grainy photos of a woman who might have been a young Lola wearing tights and carrying a balance beam as she walked on a tightrope. Others were of a man in a tux and tall top hat, carrying a whip.

  “You were a circus performer?” Sam asked.

  “Started out with a carney in Sheboygan but I ended up headlining for Ringling back in sixty-three,” she said proudly. “Traveled all over the world. After I married Lenny—he was the ringmaster—we settled down here to raise our family. We had some rough patches, but our sons turned out all right. He passed away three years ago, my Lenny, but he lived to see his boys do him proud. Leonard Junior’s a doctor and Sonny—his real name’s Ralph—he’s in real estate. Doing real good.”

  Wanting to keep the conversation on course, Sam quickly said, “I bet you must’ve had lots of adventures with the circus, but right now I have a boy whose life is in danger—and so is mine if I can’t catch those two guys who left the car here last night. Can you give me a description of them?”

  Lola took a seat on a fragile chaise lounge and indicated that Sam should sit on the overstuffed chair near the glass-block window filled with potted plants. The old woman squinted in concentration, then said, “The streetlight’s down a ways, so all I could really make out was their silhouettes. One was big, brawny-looking like a wrestler, the other a skinny little weasel. Looked sneaky from what I could tell. The big one was carrying something against his side. Was it heat?”

  “An MP5 submachine gun,” Sam replied, glancing at the oversize console television. Heat? The old gal must watch a lot of TV. “How did they get away? Did you see another car?”

  “It just pulled down the street, slowing right behind the lighter-colored car them men got out of. Like whoever was driving it was expecting them. I couldn’t tell what kind, but it was dark blue or black, I think. A big luxury sedan. My Sonny, he has a Lincoln Town Car. It might’ve been one of them.”

  “Did you get the license plates?” Sam asked.

  Lola shook her head regretfully. “Too dark.”

  Sam patted the old woman’s hand. “You’ve been a big help.” When Lola offered coffee and chocolate chip cookies, Sam reluctantly explained, “My husband’s waiting for me and he’ll worry if I don’t show up soon. Thanks anyway.”

  “Honey, please don’t send any of them cops around. I won’t talk to ’em.”

  Sam raised her hand as if making a Scout’s pledge. “Promise, I won’t, but I might be back.”

  “Say, you do that, honey. I always wanted a daughter but all I got’s two pain-in-the-ass daughter-in-laws,” Lola said with a chuckle.

  Sam ducked and dodged her way through the shrubbery, wondering why a woman whose kids had obviously provided her with every other luxury didn’t hire a gardener, then decided Lola probably liked the privacy. She pulled the creaky gate open and stepped into the gathering twilight, glancing down the street to where Matt was waiting in the Charger. Her attention was fixed on the car. The sharp prod of a pistol barrel jabbed in her kidney caught her by surprise.

  “Don’t turn around,” a voice almost as squeaky as the gate whispered. “Just walk back to that junker like a good girly.”

  Chapter 23

  It was the skinny little weasel. Sam would have bet Matt’s trust fund on it. She glanced toward the Charger and saw another figure in the backseat. The “wrestler” Lola had described. While her mind raced over options, the little guy poking her with the gun said, “I’m gonna put my piece in my coat pocket. Just act nice and natural. Walk over to the car and get in.”

  What to do now? She knew once she climbed in the old car it would be a one-way ride for her and Matt. “Even you aren’t dumb enough to shoot us in the middle of a public place,” she said, stalling.

  “Keep it up, you smart-ass broad, and see,” he hissed, jamming the gun into her back again, hard enough to pitch her forward a step.

  Instinctively, she grabbed the gate, which gave out a hideous screech. Sam put all her weight against it, slamming it backward into the weasel. He let out a yelp of pain as one of the rusty iron bars slammed into his nose, making a soggy crunch. Blood spurted. The weasel stumbled against the wall. Sam pulled back the gate and slammed it into him again. This time one of the iron bars made contact with the guy’s gun hand inside the pocket of his windbreaker. The pocket exploded and the creep staggered against the wall, sliding to the ground.

  He screamed. “I’ve shot myself in the crotch! Oh, my God! Oh, my wang! You bitch!” He fumbled to withdraw the gun from his pocket but it was caught in the lining. Unable to concentrate because of the pain, he yelled across the street, “Hey, B
aldo, shoot her!”

  Baldo was busy. When Matt saw Sam emerge from the gate, he shoved the passenger door open and rolled out of the car. A shot zinged at his head, missing by an inch, throwing up concrete chips that lacerated his face. The big muscle-bound guy had a hard time climbing over the front seat of the two-door car.

  Matt had enough time to roll beneath the body and scramble to the opposite side of the Charger. He jumped into a crouch and darted behind the trunk, ready to pounce. From across the street he could hear the sound of a shot and then a man bellowing in pain and cursing. He grinned. Only Sam could make somebody that mad.

  Sam decided the hysterical weasel was out of the game. At once, she dug her snub nose from her handbag. Matt was behind the Charger, ready to jump an armed man who outweighed him by fifty pounds at least! She couldn’t hit the big guy because the car provided him cover. Then she heard the sound of feet running from the house and Lola’s voice yelling out, “Here I come, dearie!”

  The old lady was carrying a .22 Marlin rifle. She jabbed it into the weasel’s already injured groin. “Did I tell you I was a trick shot back in my carney days before I took to the high wire? They called me Little Annie O.,” she said to Sam. By this time her victim was doubled up, whimpering.

  Sam replied, “If he takes too deep a breath, shoot his dick off—if he hasn’t already done it himself.”

  “Honey, it’s a good thing I’m a sharpshooter, to hit that itty-bitty target.”

  Sam dashed across the street as her husband prepared to tackle the big guy. But the brute paused to look over the roof of the car at the ruckus his partner had created. When Matt moved, Baldo heard him and turned suddenly, gun raised, ready to fire point-blank. Sam tried to aim from twenty feet away but Matt was in her line of fire. Matt’s only advantage was speed. He knocked the gun aside, landing a punch to the thug’s jaw that would have sent any ordinary man to the pavement, unconscious. The goon was slow, but had the staying power of Rocky Marciano. His head and thick neck vibrated from the blow. Still he raised the gun again, doggedly trying for his shot.

  Sam closed in just as his fat finger started to whiten over the trigger. She couldn’t shoot him without hitting Matt, but she yelled and fired over their heads as a distraction. That was all Matt needed. Baldo was strong but not bright. He held the gun directly in front of him. Matt knocked it aside with his right hand and the shot went wild. At the same time his left connected with the big goon’s throat. The gunman grunted and dropped to the concrete, still holding on to his weapon.

  By this time Sam reached them and smashed her gun against the sensitive nerve endings inside his wrist. She then removed the weapon from his paralyzed fingers. “Damn, Granger, I can’t leave you alone for even five minutes without you getting in trouble,” she said, never so scared in her life as she’d been when Baldo had started to pull that trigger.

  “Son of a bitch came up behind me, strolling along like he was a damned tourist. Next thing I know he had that cannon stuck in my ear. By that time I could see the little guy in the rearview mirror, moving along the wall outside the gate of that house you’d gone into.” He pulled her into his arms and held her until the sound of loud bleats of pain interspersed with crackly voiced oaths carried across the street.

  “I think Lola’s abusing her prisoner,” Sam said, pulling out of his arms reluctantly. She handed him Baldo’s piece. “Hold our boy while I call the cops.”

  Matt looked at half a dozen people scattered around the park, all talking on cell phones from the cover of trees and shrubs. “I doubt you need to bother.”

  The first cruiser arrived, lights flashing as Sam was crossing the street. The two uniforms who got out of the vehicle focused on Matt and Baldo. That gave her time to reach Lola. “If you don’t want to talk to the cops, this might be a good time to make an exit,” she whispered as Lola walked through the gate.

  “Thanks, I appreciate it, honey,” the old woman replied, quickly closing the rusty wrought iron, which strangely didn’t make a sound when she operated it.

  “I’m the one who should be thanking you. You saved us, Lola. And that boy we’re trying to help.”

  “You and your husband come visit me soon, okay? Oh, and bring the boy. Maybe he’ll like chocolate chip cookies.”

  “I promise,” Sam replied, dragging the weasel from where he’d fallen against the wall. She waited as a second cruiser pulled up to the curb. “Try not to run over the creep. Might mess up his prints,” she said with a cheeky grin as she replaced her .38 in her handbag and retrieved her license for the scowling young cop.

  She and Matt were going to have a lot of explaining to do, but Patowski could help with it. And now they had the two goons who’d been trying to kill them since she started the trip to St. Louis. Not a bad day’s work.

  “Good news and bad news,” Sam said, cutting off the phone after a long conversation with Patowski. They were seated in their condo at the breakfast bar, a bottle of Guinness by her side, a tall gin and tonic by his. It was two o’clock in the morning.

  He took a drink, then said, “Bad first.” He’d already figured out some of the information from listening to her side of the conversation.

  “Scruggs and Kleb know Farley’s staying with Captain Montoya. I knew Elvis would figure out where the kid was when you mentioned police protection.” She slumped dejectedly against the back of the bar stool and took a long pull from the bottle.

  “Now that we have those two thugs in custody, maybe it’s for the better. Scruggs for damn sure isn’t going to hand Farley over to Winchester or his partner in crime. Anyway, in case you forgot, tonight’s the big annual chapter party at Montoya’s house. Every Space Quest junkie in greater Miami will be there in full costume. It’d be decent if they’d wait until Farley gets to participate before they come for him.”

  “We’re talking feds here, Matt. On the scent of a big tax evasion and drug bust. They don’t do decent.”

  “I’ll put in a call to Montoya. See if he can get the kid a one-night pass.” He picked up the phone and called the captain. After a brief conversation, he hung up with a smile. “Bill already worked out a deal to keep the kid at his place until the case breaks. But he does have to let the feds talk to the boy. It was that or word came down from above that he’d have to let the alphabet soup guys put Farley in some safe house of theirs.”

  “Better than I would’ve hoped,” she said, not happy.

  “Now, the good news you had?” Matt prompted.

  “Those two goons are singing like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. It seems our boy Reicht hired them through his pals in the local drug trade. He had a body for them to dispose of. According to Patty, Leila had been beaten really bad before the shrink killed her.”

  “He wanted some kind of information out of her, but what?”

  Sam shrugged. “They didn’t know, but they swear when they got to the deserted office building where he’d stashed her, she was already dead. Place is out in the middle of nowhere but Reicht owns it. Gonna develop it as a strip mall with mob money.” She tapped her beer bottle idly, thinking. “I bet this is a triple play—Leila to Brio to Susan Winchester.”

  “If Kenny was having a fling with Susan, and Susan was being treated by Reicht—”

  “The shrink probably used some of the same dandy drug cocktails on her as he did on Farley,” Sam said, picking up his train of thought. “Or she just confessed. Either way, Reicht knew about Brio and the threat he potentially posed to Winchester. They’d do anything to get Brio out of Susan’s life, but even if they killed him, why would they kill Leila five years later? How would they even know she was Kenny’s sister?”

  “She went out of her way to make friends with Farley, signed up for head shrinking with the high-priced doc. She wanted access to Winchester and Reicht. Something she did must’ve tipped them,” Matt said.

  “Before he died, Kenny might’ve told his kid sister about Susan, maybe even found out something about Winchester’s connection
to Reicht’s drug scams. I wonder if he stashed some evidence?”

  “He could’ve tried to blackmail Winchester. Reicht would want to get his hands on whatever Brio had shared with Leila and shut her up permanently, just like he did her brother,” Sam said. “But after five years, what tipped him to Leila?”

  “Maybe she tried to use her brother’s evidence for her own blackmail scam,” he suggested.

  Sam shook her head. “Not the feel I have for her from what the women at the Pink Pussycat told me. I bet she wanted to nail Winchester and Reicht for killing her brother.”

  “If she had Brio’s evidence, it would explain why Reicht tortured her before he killed her. But we may never know if she talked before she died.”

  “Knowing that snake Reicht, I’d bet she did,” Sam said grimly.

  “We know he’s not averse to using drugs. I wonder why he worked her over,” Matt said, rubbing his jaw.

  “I bet he likes to inflict pain. Or, maybe she was allergic to the stuff he tried on her. With a bastard like him, who knows?”

  “We’ll find out,” he replied, thinking of what a man who tortured a woman deserved.

  “We do know he canceled his appointment with Farley suddenly that afternoon. Leila must have been in his office. Farley saw Reicht take her up in the elevator. It all fits.”

  “Only if we can prove it.” Matt stirred his glass and polished off the drink.

  “But the cops have two guys willing to connect the dots to the doc. Besides giving up Reicht, Baldo and Miller—that’s the weasel’s name—admitted some guy named Gus picked them up after they were supposed to have run us off the causeway last night. They swear they don’t know anything else about him. Patty says Gus is one of Rico Salazar’s leg breakers.”