Love and Lies: A Jake Badger Mystery Thriller

by Glenn Rogers

  Theodor rolled his eyes, sighed again, and said, “A. J. Loftus. The accountant for the L.A. branch is A. J. Loftus.”

  “A. J. Loftus,” I said.

  “Loftus,” he said.

  “I need you to set up a meeting.”

  “I don't know if I can do that,” Theodor said. “I never met the guy.”

  “You'll find a way,” I said. “And until you do, I'm not letting you out of my sight.”

  Chapter 42

  “What does that mean?” Theodor asked.

  “It means that until you get a meeting set up for me with Loftus, I'm not letting you out of my sight.”

  “So, what, you're kidnapping me?”

  “Call it whatever you want. You get your life back when you get me a meeting with Loftus.”

  “I can't do anything tonight. It's too late. What are you going to do with me for the night?”

  “I've got a nice comfortable place you can stay. Open the glove compartment.”

  He did. I told him to hand me a pair of the handcuffs. He did and in spite of his protests, I handcuffed his hands behind his back.

  “This is not cool, man,” Theodor said.

  “Maybe not. But it's necessary. Think of it as me protecting you from yourself.”

  “My back hurts where you hit me.”

  “The only reason I hit you is that you tried to hit me. Remember?”

  “I already apologized for that.”

  “You did. And I accept your apology.”

  Most men would have been angry. Theodor was just sulky. I took out my phone. It was not quite ten. Alex would still be up. I called him and explained what I needed.

  “You want to put him in a holding cell for the night?” he asked.

  “That a problem?”

  “No. We'll say he's in protective custody.”

  “I'm coming from Reseda,” I said. “So thirty minutes or so.”

  “I'll be there.”

  I started my Jeep.

  “Where we going?” Theodor asked, having heard only my end of the conversation.

  “I'm taking you to your hotel.”

  We got Theodor safely ensconced for the night in one of the FBI holding cells. I took his cell phone. He was not happy about being locked up, but I brought him some snacks to munch on and a couple of Cokes. That helped a little.

  I was back a little after nine the next morning. Alex put me in a small office and brought Theodor in.

  “Sleep well?” I asked him.

  He was sulky and unresponsive.

  “Nice breakfast?”

  “You can't keep me here,” Theodor said.

  “I've no intention of keeping you here. As soon as you get me a meeting with Loftus, you're outta here.”

  He wasn't sure whether or not he should believe me.

  “I'm not lying to you Theodor. Get me a meeting with Loftus and I let you go.”

  “How am I supposed to set up a meeting if I'm locked up here?”

  “Make a phone call.”

  “A phone call,” he said, as if the idea hadn't occurred to him. He nodded. “Sure. Okay. I need my cell phone.”

  I gave it to him.

  He opened his contacts list, selected a name, and touched the number. He put the phone to his ear.

  “Oscar, it's Teddy. I need Loftus' phone number.”

  He listened and said, “I got a guy here who did a job. Says he never got paid. I'm just trying to help him out.”

  He listened some more. “I don't know, Chuck something. I got it written down somewhere. I'm just trying to help him out. If he did the job, he ought to get paid.”

  More listening. “Sure. Can I have the number?”

  As the guy gave Theodor the number, he repeated it. I wrote it down.

  “Okay, thanks,” Theodor said, and disconnected.

  “Their gonna know I did this, man.”

  He was getting agitated.

  “These are smart people,” Theodor said. “They'll put it together and they'll come after me. They'll kill me. And it's gonna be on your head, man. It’s gonna be your fault.”

  “Ever think of relocating?” I asked.

  “Reloc ... Jeez. What's wrong with you, man? Relocating.”

  “Theodor,” I said, “set up the meeting and we'll worry about your future later. Get me what I want and we'll find a way to keep you alive.”

  Theodor was not a brilliant guy, but he understood that he had no real alternative.

  “What am I supposed to say to get Loftus to agree to a meeting?”

  “I don't know,” I said. “What do you think you should say?”

  “I got no idea. Like I said, I never met the guy.”

  “Wing it.”

  He frowned at me. “Wing it. Right. You wing it,” he said. His sulkiness had returned.

  He punched in the number and waited.

  I said, “Make sure the meeting is in a neutral location somewhere, a bar or something.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” he said, annoyed but nodding.

  Someone answered and Theodor said, “Uh, yeah, can I talk to Loftus, please ...”

  “Yeah, this is Teddy.”

  “Sylvia? I didn't know you were working for Loftus now. How are you? ... Yeah? ... Really? ... No, not much. But I got something you can help me with. I uh, I got a guy here who needs to meet with Loftus about an accounting issue. Important matter. Big. Wants a meeting away from the office … Yeah, I don't really know that ... You can do that? ... Okay, that'd be great … Yeah,” Theodor said, and gave Sylvia his cell number. “Thirty minutes. Okay.”

  He disconnected and looked at me, obviously pleased with himself.

  “So?” I said.

  “Sylvia, a nice lady. We went out once. She's gonna schedule a meeting and run it by Loftus. She’ll call back with a time and place.”

  “Not bad, Theodor. Lucky Sylvia was there, huh?”

  “Sure,” Theodor said. “So in thirty minutes I'm outta here, right?”

  “Well, actually, when I said after you set up a meeting, I meant you need to set up a meeting that actually takes place. So you need to hang around until after the meeting. Just to make sure everything goes okay.”

  He started to object but I held up a finger and he held his tongue.

  Chapter 43

  Sylvia called back in twenty-two minutes and said the meeting was at Rustic Canyon on Wilshire in Santa Monica, at seven thirty. Rustic Canyon. Not what I expected from a mob accountant, but it would do. We put Theodor back in his cell with a cup of coffee, two donuts, a magazine, and the promise of a nice lunch. He was thoroughly annoyed with me. Nothing to be done about that.

  I walked into Monica's office expecting to see her sitting behind her desk knitting. She was behind her desk, but instead of knitting, she was reading a file. There was a stack of six or seven more files sitting off to the side of her desk.

  She looked up and smiled when I came in. “Hi. Did you know that Christine Warren has a law degree from Stanford?”

  “Yep,” I said, as I sat down in front of her desk.

  “And that Lowell Griffin has two masters degrees, one in economics and one in psychology?”

  “Yes.”

  “And that David Hoffmeyer has a Ph.D. in forensic psychology?”

  “Knew that, too.”

  “Even Elaine. She had a master’s degree in linguistics, and in the Navy was an intelligence officer. Everyone you worked with was either a doctor or a lawyer or had master’s degrees. You were the only one who ...”

  She stopped.

  I smiled. “I was the only dummy in the bunch.”

  “That's not what I meant, and you know it. You're probably the smartest person I've ever met. What’s your IQ, one seventy? You just didn't stay in school and earn all the degrees you could have earned. All of these people are ... well, you just don't normally think of cops as being this highly educated and accomplished.”

  “Most cops aren't,” I said. “But FBI agents aren't cops.
They're agents of the federal government. They are the law enforcement elite.”

  “Yeah, well, my point is that this is a very impressive group of people you were working with. And not just educationally. They have all kinds of special certifications and skills and stuff. Even Brandt and Kraft. Very capable men. And then there’s Alex. We know about him. This a quite a group of people.”

  I nodded. “It was a good team. That's why it bothers me so much that one of them was selling information to the syndicate.”

  Monica studied me a moment and then said, “Yeah ... So, what's up?”

  I told her about Theodor and the meeting we had with Loftus at Rustic Canyon.

  “Oh goodie,” Monica said, not sounding entirely sincere. “I get to play dress up.”

  I smiled. “It's going to be fun.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  She didn't seem enthused.

  “You really think this guy's going to tell you who the informant was?”

  “I don't know,” I said. “Maybe. But that's not really the goal. The plan is to take Loftus and then trade him for the name of the informant.”

  “Okay,” she said. “So what's the plan?”

  “You get yourself all sexed up and I'll pick you up at seven.”

  “All sexed up?”

  “Positively enticing,” I said.

  “For this Loftus guy.”

  “Yeah.”

  She stood and came around the desk, she was wearing a pair jeans of that fit her very well and a female version of a light blue Oxford button down. She took me by my shirt front and pulled me to my feet. Holding me very close to her, she said, “Wouldn't you rather that I got all sexed up for you?”

  “How's that going to help us take Loftus?”

  She pushed me back down into the chair.

  “You know, at some point I'm going to stop offering.”

  I looked at her speculatively, smiled, and said, “Probably not.”

  “Oh shut up … And go away. I have work to do.”

  I figured that it was going to be a busy night and that I wouldn't have time to go to the gym. So, after some Chinese takeout at my office, I went to the gym for a couple of hours. I lifted weights for an hour and then worked on the heavy bag.

  When I got back to the office, Wilson wanted to go for a walk. When he'd finished explaining to other dogs that had inadvertently strayed into the area that this was his territory, we returned to the office where I read most of Gorgias, Plato’s critique of sophistic rhetoric. At five, I took Wilson home, fed him and fixed myself a turkey sandwich for dinner. At six-thirty I left to pick up Monica.

  Chapter 44

  I got to Monica's house at five of seven and knocked on the door. When she's working, Monica usually wears jeans and a nice looking blouse of some sort. Different colors, pretty, feminine. Her hair is usually pulled back into a ponytail. Functional, but cute. We've been out to dinner a couple of times where she dressed up. She's very attractive no matter what she’s wearing. When she dresses up to go out, she’s a knockout. I don't know what I was expecting, maybe the going out to dinner version. But when Monica opened the door, I just stood there with my mouth hanging open. She had on a tight little emerald green dress that brought out the green in her eyes and contrasted perfectly with the rich redness of her thick shoulder-length hair. The dress stopped about eight inches above the knees. A lot of leg would be visible when she sat down. The neckline was wide and low and showed a good eight inches of cleavage. She was breathtaking.

  “Wow,” was all I could say.

  She smiled, appreciatively. “This sexed up enough for you?” she asked.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Okay, you can close your mouth now,” she said, stepping out onto her small porch and pulling the door shut behind her. “Come on. We have work to do.”

  I watched her as she walked toward my Wrangler. The view from the rear was as good as the view from the front. Wow. Half way to my Jeep she stopped, turned and smiled mischievously at me.

  On the way to Rustic Canyon, Monica seemed more subdued than usual.

  “Busy afternoon?” I asked.

  “Mostly, I just read files,” she said. “Did some background checks. Credit reports. That sort of thing.”

  “Find anything interesting?”

  “Most of the time when you look into people's private lives, what you find is boring. You know that.”

  I did. “Find anything else on Kraft?” I asked.

  “No.”

  When we got to Rustic Canyon, Monica asked, “So how do I recognize Loftus?”

  I explained that when Sylvia called to confirm the meeting, she'd said that Loftus would be sitting at the bar. Late thirties, blond hair, gray suit, business card on the bar.

  “I thought I'd go in first ...”

  “No need,” she said, opening the door. “I'll bring him out.”

  “Well ...”

  She got out and closed the door.

  “Okay then. I'll just wait here.”

  In about five minutes she came back out and got in beside me. As she climbed in her dress rode up quite high. I made no effort not to notice.

  “We've got a problem,” Monica said.

  I waited for an explanation.

  “A.J. Loftus is a woman.”

  “A woman?”

  Monica smiled. “The kind who would not be the least bit interested in me,” she said.

  “Great,” I said. “Now what?”

  “You're going to have to go in and pick her up.”

  “Me?”

  “Sure. Why not?”

  Why not? How much time did she have for me to explain? “No,” I said. “I'm not good at that sort thing. Meeting women is not ...”

  “Oh baloney,” she said, interrupting me. “Stop whining. You're a handsome man. When we go out together, I watch women noticing you. They’re drawn to you. They can't keep their eyes off you.”

  I was pretty sure she was exaggerating.

  “Just go in there, sit down next to her, smile, and say hello.”

  “Smile and say hello.”

  “Yes. When she gets a look at those shoulders and those blue eyes, she'll be putty in your hands.”

  “In my sweaty hands?”

  “Jake, you can do this. Here, practice on me.”

  “Right now?”

  “Yes, right now. She's in there waiting. Now, come on … Okay, you've walked in and sat down next to her. Look at her, smile, and say, ‘hello.’”

  “Monica ...”

  “Do it,” she said, cutting me off.

  I’d sooner face armed opponents.

  “Look at me.”

  I looked at her.

  “Smile.”

  I smiled.

  “Now, say hello.”

  “Hello,” I said, as I gave her my most genuine smile.

  “Hello,” Monica said, returning my smile.

  I didn't know what to do next.

  “Introduce yourself.”

  “I’m Jake.”

  “I'm Monica.”

  I decided to go for broke. “Hi, Monica. I think you're waiting for me.”

  “You're Theodor's friend?”

  “Yes.”

  “Perfect,” Monica said. “See, you can do this. You're a natural. Now, go in there and get your woman.”

  Chapter 45

  A.J. Loftus was sitting toward the right end of the bar, half a glass of white wine on the bar in front of her. A blond. Slim, tall, wearing a gray suit, business card lying on the bar beside her drink. I took a deep breath and walked over, taking a seat on the stool next to her.

  “Hello,” I said, confidently, I thought. I smiled. “I'm Jake. I think you're waiting for me.”

  “Hello Jake. I'm A.J.”

  We shook hands. The bartender came over. I ordered a Coke Zero.

  “A.J.?” I asked.

  She smiled. “Angela Josephine.”

  “Ah.”

  Another smile. “You must be The
odor's friend,” she said.

  So far it was going according to script.

  “Yes,” I said.

  The bartender returned with my Coke and looked at A.J. She shook her head.

  “So,” she said, “I understand you have a serious accounting concern.”

  “I do.” I took a drink of my Coke and smiled.

  “Would you like to explain what it is,” she said, “or would you like me to guess?” She smiled pleasantly.

  Okay, a little bit of a smartass.

  The bar was not crowded. There was no one sitting close enough to us to overhear our conversation.

  “Well, actually,” I said, “I've got some paperwork in my car outside. I was hoping you'd come out and take a look at it.”

  Her eyes narrowed a bit, filling with suspicion. “Why don't you just bring the paperwork in here,” she said. “We can sit at a table.”

  “Actually,” I said, leaning toward her. “You really need to come outside.” I opened my sport coat enough so that she could see my gun. “I don't want to hurt you and I don't want to hurt anyone in here, either.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Some information.”

  She took a deep breath. She hesitated, trying to decide what to do.

  “A.J.,” I said, in an attempt to help her make the right decision, “I'm taking you out of here. Whether you or anyone else in here gets hurt or not is up to you. Please don't make the wrong choice. If you come with me, I will not hurt you.”

  She took another deep breath. “Okay, let's go.” She picked up her purse and her leather computer bag.

  Gutsy woman.

  I left a twenty on the bar and we walked out quietly. Monica had gotten into the tiny back seat of my Wrangler. It occurred to me that it couldn't have been easy in that dress she was wearing. It also occurred to me that now was not the time for me to be thinking about that.

  I opened the passenger side door and A.J. got in. Monica introduced herself to A.J. as I went around to the driver's side.

  As I got in, A.J. said, “I saw her in the bar. Who are you people?”

  I started the jeep and pulled into traffic. “We're private investigators.”

  “What are you investigating? Did my ex-husband send you?”