“Are you Helena Hopkins?”
“Yes, do I know you?”
“No, ma’am. I saw your car in spot 2-G in the lot out back. I called in the license number and the Port City Police Department gave me your name.”
“Are you a police officer?”
“I’m a private investigator working with the police. We’re looking for a man known as Teddy Ngombo. But my contact with the police gave me the wrong apartment number. Perhaps you’ve seen this man around. Goes by the name Teddy, but his full name is Tegumetosa Ngombo. He’s from central Africa. Six-one, one hundred-eighty-five pounds, speaks good English with a slight British accent. He has long dreadlocks tied into a ponytail and tribal scars around his face. A rather jagged scar marks his right cheek like this.” I dragged a finger down my cheek at an angle. “If you’ve seen him, you’d remember.”
She nodded. “I remember a guy with scars like that. I saw him around the pool once or twice. He lives somewhere on the top floor.”
“Thanks. Sorry to bother you.”
I returned to the walkway between the parking lot and the elevator. I had seen the mailboxes there. T. Ngombo was listed in 8-G. Y. Nilsson occupied 8-F. The nameplate for mailbox 8-H was blank. Kelly had the wrong apartment number. I checked the parking spot designated for 8-G; it was empty.
I took the elevator to the eighth floor.
Unit 8-G’s front window was dark, its curtains drawn tight as a Scotsman’s purse. Scarface wouldn’t be home, but I had to check. I drew my Glock, held it beside my leg. I was at the right door this time and I felt tense as a guitar string. I stood against the wall next to the door. I reached across and knocked with my left hand again. Nothing. I knocked again. Still nothing. Either he was not in or he slept the sleep of the dead. The thought wasn’t that far-fetched if he’d been awake all night like I had.
I needed a place to stake out his apartment. He might see me on the walkway or the passage from the parking lot. If I hung out near the pool, I would stick out like a skunk at a cat show—particularly at night. The sightlines were lousy to Scarface’s door anyway, what with the jungle plants that decorated the walkways. I couldn’t wait in the parking lot because I’d never see him if he parked on the street and entered from the front.
The window for unit 8-F was lit and the blinds were raised enough for me to see gauzy curtains moving in the evening breeze. The window was open a few inches. Anyone glancing out that window could see Scarface come and go from his apartment. The open window meant Y. Nilsson might be a nature-lover or it could be a signal of a newcomer to South Florida. Most Port Citians who lived here more than twenty minutes ran the air conditioning pretty much twenty-four/seven. I holstered my weapon and knocked. A wireless video and audio doorbell mounted on the door replaced the peephole from the last century.
A woman’s voice that sounded like music came from the speaker. “Who is it?”
“Carlos McCrary.”
“What do you want?” She had a slight accent. Nilsson was a common name in Sweden and Norway.
“I’ll show you my identification.” I held my PI license up for the camera. “Can you read this on your screen?”
“Is that a private investigator license?” Her accented voice sounded sexy in spite of my tiredness.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“What do you want?” she repeated.
I couldn’t tell her I wanted to use her apartment for a stakeout, so I tried a different version of the truth. “I’m trying to locate your next door neighbor, Tegumetosa Ngombo. Do you know where he is or when he’ll be home?”
A few seconds passed while she checked me out with the monitor. I smiled for the camera. Maybe the dimples would do their magic.
The door opened until the chain stopped it. Her expertly frosted blonde hair looked like she was born with it. She had pale blue eyes and wore subtle pink lipstick and green eye shadow. A knockout, maybe twenty-five years old. Five-foot-ten in her bare feet with pink pedicured toenails. A gold robe highlighted her cleavage by framing it with the lapels of the white satin shawl collar. A matching white satin sash cinched around her waist and accentuated her breasts. She wasn’t wearing a bra. The robe stopped above her knees, revealing well-tanned, flawless calves. “What did you say is my neighbor’s name?”
“Tegumetosa Ngombo. He goes by Teddy. Tall, black African. Six-one, one hundred-eighty-five pounds. Speaks good English with a slight accent. Long dreadlocks tied into a ponytail, tribal scars around his face.”
“Yes, I know this man as Teddy. We had one date. He has strange ideas about women.”
“When was the last time you saw him?”
She appraised me through the crack in the doorway. Apparently she liked what she saw because she smiled. “May I please see your ID again?”
I’ll show you mine if you’ll show me yours.
“Sure.” I held my credentials to the gap in the door.
“What is that other thing?” She pointed a finger with a professional manicure.
“That’s my concealed weapon permit.”
Her face flushed, her eyes widened, her eyebrows lifted. “A concealed weapon permit? Let me see it again.”
I recognized the look and the tone of voice. She was a gun groupie. I’d met women like her before, women fascinated by a man who carries a lethal weapon. Some were afraid of guns; others carried pistols in their purses. Their common trait was that all were intrigued by the idea of lethal violence in the hands of a man. And if the man were young and handsome, that was even better. As a foreigner, she might be fascinated by the gun culture of the United States. I’d met many Europeans of both sexes who were. “So you carry a gun?”
“Yes,” then playing to her fetish, I added, “I carry a Glock 19.” I hoped to persuade her to let me wait inside for a stakeout. The company was pretty nice also.
“So you are a private detective?”
Now the accent sounded Swedish. That accounted for the blue eyes and blonde hair. Maybe she was a natural blonde.
“In the flesh.” I smiled then realized she might not know that idiom. She smiled back; the dimples get them every time.
“Please come in.” She closed the door, slipped off the chain, and opened it again. She held a glass of white wine in her left hand. Her pink manicured nails matched her toes. “I never met a real private detective before.” Big smile. “Of course, I am new to America.”
“Then this must be a real treat for you.” I returned her smile, but I didn’t wink; that would be overkill.
She stepped back and swung the door open. “Would you like a drink?”
That I didn’t expect.
Chapter 40
The blonde locked the door behind me and slipped the brass chain into its holder. I didn’t expect that either. Was I a fly she had lured into her web? Or maybe it was her habit to chain the door.
“I am Yvet Nilssen.” That musical voice again. “From Stockholm.” She offered her hand, fingers down, wrist up, like she expected me to bow and kiss it. Maybe they did it that way in Stockholm. If she’d been American, I would suspect she saw the gesture in a French-language film at a Port City Beach art theatre.
I grasped her fingers in mine. “I’m Chuck McCrary.” I resisted the urge to click my heels together.
“May I call you Carlos?” She must have paid attention when she read my creds. “It seems more… more appropriate for you.”
Also more European, I thought. “Please do, Yvet.” Since we were best buddies, I gave her another look at the dimples. I handed her a business card without the logo of the Lone Ranger atop Silver. I didn’t want to give her ideas about “Save a horse; ride a cowboy.” She held the card for a heartbeat and dropped it on a side table near the window.
“I drink Chardonnay, but I have Merlot and, uh, Tequila, I think. I’m sure I’ll find something you’d like.” Another smile, this time with fluttering eyelids. Oh boy.
Yvet and I played parts in a script written long ago by a Hollywood scree
nwriter. Or maybe Shakespeare.
All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts…
Or maybe it wasn’t play, but a mating dance. I could deal with that. “Chardonnay is fine.” I wondered what part I’d be called on to play.
For the first time I was glad my girlfriend Miyo had not agreed to an exclusive relationship. Sexuality simmered beneath Yvet’s silken robe and it looked like I might have to take one for the team. She exuded a vibe of inevitability. That and an expensive perfume. I’d bet she called it Parfum. I remembered an old joke: What’s the difference between perfume and Parfum? Three hundred dollars an ounce.
I was willing to bed a beautiful woman if she made the first move, but this immediate physical magnetism that Yvet felt struck me as shallow and superficial. Maybe she only loved me for my dimples and my Glock.
“May I take your jacket, Carlos?” As she reached to hang my coat in the closet, her robe hiked a few inches higher at the back of her thighs. The silk draped smoothly over her hips with no hint of a panty line.
Is she completely naked underneath?
I picked a seat on a fashionable over-stuffed couch that faced the window. I kept an eye on the space below the Venetian blinds in case Scarface strolled past. The other eye I kept on Yvet.
She moved like a dancer as she brought my Chardonnay from the kitchen. Her fingers brushed mine as she handed me the glass—a classic mating dance move.
Act One had begun.
She walked across the living room to an easy chair near the window and fine-tuned her robe’s sash to expose more cleavage. It felt like she’d danced this dance before.
She sat sideways on the chair and pulled her legs up under her. The silk bowed to gravity and revealed one thigh. Brava!
I wasn’t sure about the choreography or our respective roles, but I wanted to remain in her living room. Yvet assumed she was entertaining a new gentleman friend, but I was on a stakeout. I didn’t want to dance in the bedroom.
I made small talk, which I’m not good at. In fact, I’m lousy at it. Beautiful women leave me tongue-tied, but this time I couldn’t be my normal goofball self. Instead, I recalled the way my maternal grandmother entertained at her home near Mexico City when I was a child. I recalled the conversations she had at a ladies’ tea to make everyone feel at ease. Chit chat, chit chat.
Yvet was a swimsuit and leisurewear model who’d arrived in America less than a year ago. Yes, she loved the warm South Florida winter, but she missed the snow and the white Christmas in Sweden. Oh how she envied my dark tan. I didn’t tell her I was born with it, courtesy of my Mexican mother. As a blonde and a model, she must be careful of the sun. Yes, her skin tanned. “See my legs?” She lifted her robe a little in another well-crafted dance move.
I wondered again if she was naked underneath. Of course she was naked underneath; that was the whole point of her move. If our roles played out the way I expected, I’d find out soon enough. I had been awake since three that morning and I hoped I was up for the task—pun intended.
She noticed me glance out the window behind her. I snapped my eyes back to her face. Well, mostly to her face.
She straightened her leg and pointed her pedicured toes toward the ceiling, letting the robe fall farther to expose her bare hip. Important to make sure her tan was smooth and even with no tan lines except for her bikini bottom. “See, this is my only tan line.” Such a bother that she must wear SPF 50 sun block all over when she went to North Beach.
Her North Beach reference was my cue to perform my next dance step. “That’s the topless beach.” I smiled and sipped my wine. Your turn, Yvet.
She smiled back. “In Europe, all beaches are topless beaches. Or nude.” She took another generous sip of her wine.
After she finished her Chardonnay, she would want our mating dance to move to the bedroom for Act Two. Her glass was almost empty.
I improvised my own Act Two to get back on task. I had forgotten to keep my eyes on the prize. No, not that prize, the other one. “So, about Teddy Ngombo, do you know where I might find him? Or when he’ll be back?”
She frowned as if I’d missed a step or maybe missed my cue. “Not really.” Resuming the dance, she finished her wine and rose from her chair as graceful as a lioness starting her hunt. Her golden robe fell open all the way, her cleavage converted to a full-frontal flash.
She was a natural blonde. The lioness had spotted her prey, and she moved in for the kill.
She carried her empty glass across the room to an end table next to the couch. As she leaned over to set it down, the robe fell open to expose her left breast, perfectly shaped and perfectly tanned. No tan lines. I was confident her right breast matched; after all, she was a swimsuit model. The sash on her robe had magically slipped loose by the time she sat next to me on the couch. She lifted my half-full glass of wine from my fingers. “You won’t need this.” She downed my wine in a heartbeat. I figured she’d done that once or twice before.
I snuck another quick look out the front window as she leaned across my body and set the empty glass on the lamp table. She saw the look and laughed. “I have an idea, Chuck. If we turn off this lamp,” she touched the lamp’s brass base and it began to dim, “we shall sit here in the dark and you will see my neighbor when he comes home.” She winked at me. “I know that’s what you came for; I’m just a bonus.” She extinguished the lamp and threw the room into darkness.
Chapter 41
A few more dance moves and Yvet whispered in my ear, “Why don’t we take this party to the bedroom? We will be more comfortable there.”
“Let’s stay here on the couch. I need to know when Ngombo comes home. I know a way we can manage here just fine. I’ll show you.” I lifted her onto my lap.
“Ooh, you are so strong.” She wiggled into a more comfortable position on my lap as her robe fell to the floor. She wrapped one arm around my neck. She tugged at my belt with her other hand, then stopped. “May I unclip your holster?”
“I thought you’d never ask.”
###
Rubber-soled shoes squeaked on the walk outside Yvet’s partially-open window.
I came alert, which was not easy with Yvet still astride my lap.
The footsteps grew louder.
I placed a finger across her lips. “He’s coming.”
She giggled and whispered back, “Why should we be the only ones?” She wiggled her hips and I almost lost focus.
A silhouette passed across the bottom of her window and the steps grew fainter. They stopped and I heard Scarface’s key in the lock.
I slid her off my lap. “He’s gone inside. I doubt if he’ll come out again tonight.”
“You are investigating Teddy, are you not?”
“Yes, I am.”
“When we had our date, he gave me his phone number. It is in my phone’s contacts. Would you like it?”
Would I ever.
I reached to the floor and fished my phone from my pants pocket. I handed it to her. She entered Ngombo’s number in my contact list. “I shall enter my number also.” She put her lips to my ear and whispered, “I did a favor for you. You will now do a favor for me, yes?”
“What did you have in mind?”
“Let’s move to the bedroom. There are certain things we cannot do on this couch.”
###
Later Yvet walked me to her front door and slipped off the chain. “Don’t worry, Carlos. You don’t need to call me tomorrow to tell me what a wonderful time you had. I don’t expect you to send flowers. We Swedes have a more, uh, more… I think the English word is ‘nonchalant,’ yes, nonchalant attitude toward sex than you Americans. I had a lovely time. It would be lovely if we meet again. If not, that is okay too.”
She kissed me goodbye and closed the door behind me. I heard the chain slide into place, punctuating the success of the lio
ness’s hunt. Game over. We both won.
As I expected, a black Jeep Grand Cherokee was in the space reserved for unit 8-G. I checked to see if any other Grand Cherokee had arrived in the lot while Yvet entertained me. Or did I entertain her? There were none. It was Scarface’s. I called in the license plate to a contact in the Port City PD. It came back as registered to TCL Enterprises, Inc. It was registered to a post office box at the Port City North Shore Branch. I texted Flamer to investigate TCL Enterprises.
Now that I knew where Scarface lived, and what he drove, I changed my plan. I didn’t need to confront him. Besides, a bullet could shoot through the wall between his apartment and Yvet’s. I got a GPS tracker from Snoop’s Toyota and fastened it underneath Scarface’s bumper.
I called Kelly. “It’s too late for me to call Janet in case she’s sleeping. How’s Snoop?”
“Not good. He was in surgery for several hours. Lost a lot of blood. His condition is ‘grave.’ Oh god, I hate that word grave; it reminds me of death. I’m sorry, Chuck. He may not make it. Bigs and I stayed with Janet until her daughters got there. I’m home now, but I called the nurse in the ICU a few minutes ago. No change. You have any luck with Scarface?”
“He lives in apartment 8-G, not 2-G. Someone screwed your file up. He’s at home now. Has anyone heard from the kidnappers?”
“Don’t you ever sleep?”
“Soon. I’ve been as busy as a busker juggling five balls. Have they called?”
“Like I said, I’m off duty. Haven’t you heard? With the kidnapping, this is an FBI case. Special Agent Eugenio Lopez is in charge.”
“I hadn’t heard, but kidnapping is a federal crime. I’m sure with the FBI on the case we can relax; the world is in good hands.”
“You remember what happened to Pinocchio’s nose when he lied?”
“Seriously, I’m beat. I’ll talk to Gene Lopez in the morning.”
Chapter 42
Day of the Tiger (A Carlos McCrary Mystery Thriller Book 5) Page 15