Flash

by Tim Tigner

  “Don’t worry about it. Everyone will assume that can’t be a fugitive if you’re already with the police. Trust me, I’ve worn a uniform enough to know how people react to one.”

  Just then a pink and yellow courtesy trolley pulled into the terminal cul-de-sac. Before it had finished disgorging its jolly crowd, a second trolley pulled in.

  “Ask and ye shall receive,” Troy said.

  “I wish.”

  They blended into the herd of beach-bag toting cruisers. Emmy flashed her stolen cruise ship ID at the terminal checkpoint, but the guard paid more attention to Troy. It was as if he expected Troy to point at her and mouth “prostitute” with a wink. Troy maintained his no nonsense expression.

  As they approached the Neptune III, a pair of uniformed officers with binoculars rose from a table and began walking their way. Troy asked Emmy a question, using conversation to augment their camouflage. “So how do you think Honey found us?”

  Emmy’s cool and reasoned reply reflected her battle-ready state of mind. “He just put himself in our shoes and set an intercept course. I’m sure he orchestrated the media blitz just to make sure we were thinking about disguise.”

  “My thoughts exactly. I’m just embarrassed that I didn’t play a better game of chess.”

  “You did okay,” Emmy said. “Why do you think he came alone?”

  “That’s an easy one. Pride.”

  The officers were almost upon them now, and they looked serious. Troy could not see their eyes for their mirrored shades, but he felt their gaze boring into him. So close …

  And then they walked past. He heard, “Would you two please come with us?”

  “What’s this about, officer?” A male voice behind them responded.

  “Step this way, please. This will only take a minute.”

  Troy listened without looking back as the couple was toted off through the murmuring crowd. Fifteen steps later he and Emmy reached the Neptune’s gangplank. A sailor seated behind a podium eyed Troy and then said, “May I see your Neptune ID, ma’am.”

  Emmy handed him her stolen credential and the sailor ran it through a reader. He smiled when he got the green light and handed it back.

  Emmy turned to Troy. “Thank you so much for seeing me safely back. It means a lot.”

  “My pleasure,” Troy said.

  “You always hear about how scary such situations are, but you never really understand until it happens to you.”

  “Mrs. Beaumont was mugged,” Troy said, addressing the sailor.

  The sailor’s eyebrows shot up. “So sorry to hear that ma’am. Are you okay? Is there anything I can do for you?”

  “No, thank you. Officer Jones has been most kind. Made me feel safe again.”

  “Can I buy you a drink,” She said turning back to Troy. “There’s a beautiful lounge up on the, the …”

  “Promenade deck,” the sailor supplied. “You’re thinking of the Atlantis Lounge on the promenade deck.”

  “When do you weigh anchor?” Troy asked the sailor.

  “You’ve got ninety minutes till the whistle,” the sailor said. “Plenty of time for a drink.”

  Chapter 61

  Honey opened his eyes to see big white teeth attached to an old black face. William, the theater janitor.

  He sat up to rub the back of his head only to note that they had stolen his clothes. Rage and shame battled within him for emotional dominance—but pride was the real culprit. He had blown his perfect plan by attempting to bring them in alone.

  “What time is it?” He asked, grasping at straws. “How long ago did they leave?”

  “’Bout fifteen, maybe twenty minutes ago. They done tied us up back ta back, an’ it took me a while to wrangle free.”

  Twenty minutes was too big a gap for Honey to overtake them, but he might still catch them if he could guess where they were going. He had no doubt that the theatre was their last stop before leaving the island because that’s what he would do. The only question in his mind was: By air or by sea?

  “Have you got another set of coveralls?” He asked William.

  “No Sir. These here is all I got.”

  Honey thought of making the old man give him his clothes, but he wanted to take him along. Another set of eyes was another set of eyes. After weighing the alternatives for a brief moment, the obvious struck him. “Where do you keep the costumes?”

  Five minutes later Honey was racing William’s old Chevy pickup toward Owen Roberts International Airport with the janitor by his side. He was dressed in the blue chalk-stripe suit coat and pants worn by the actor playing Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman. It was six inches too short and sixty pounds too fat for his frame. He felt ridiculous.

  As he pulled into the airport’s long drop-off drive, he saw a police car parked off to his left in the far corner of the parking lot. He made a snap decision and cranked the wheel left, taking the old pickup over the curb and grass toward the parking lot.

  “What you doin’, captain?” William asked.

  “Getting reinforcements,” he said. If he was going to walk through the terminal in that ridiculous suit, he was going to do it with a shotgun over his shoulder like Elliot Ness.

  He expected to find a couple of his men napping in their car. That seemed the only explanation for their remote choice of parking spots. To his chagrin, however, the patrol car was both empty and locked. As he whirled about cursing the precious seconds he had lost, he heard “Help!” coming from the trunk.

  Honey felt his hopes surge.

  He had guessed correctly.

  They had come to the airport.

  “Hold on!” Honey yelled back. “You got a tire iron?” He asked William.

  “I got my tool chest. There’s a hamma’”

  William handed him the tool without delay. Honey took it and proceeded to wedge the claw beneath the trunk lock.

  “Wai’ Captain,” William said, reaching for the instrument. “Betta’ ta just break the window an’ pop the boot.”

  Christ, Honey thought, even the janitor was outsmarting him today. He gave William back the hammer so he could do the honors. William did, and Honey popped the trunk.

  Mertins scrambled out as soon as the latch released. Honey saw that his right side was covered in blood and asked, “Are you shot?”

  “Not my blood. It’s Brandell’s.”

  Honey moved around to where he could see into the trunk. The man he had known for close to a decade, ever since he joined the force from the Royal Navy, was dead. “That makes three,” he said. “First Johnson, then Jacobs, now Brandell. Unlock the shotgun and let’s go get the bastards.”

  “Bastards?” Mertins repeated. “Captain, it was just one guy.”

  “Christ, Mertins. Haven’t you been paying attention? He’s got an accomplice. Pretty little she-devil. She must have been waiting out of sight.”

  “Captain, no Captain. This wasn’t the couple that killed Johnson and Jacobs. This was the man who kidnapped the Wootens.”

  “The Wootens?”

  “Yes, Sir, Deputy Chief Wootens’ parents. He held them hostage in their condo for two days—over on Elisabeth Avenue.”

  Honey felt his hopes dash. Not only did this make it less likely that he’d catch the pair who had twice humiliated him, but now he had another killer on his hands. The island was going to pot. “Shit.”

  “We’ll get him though, Captain. Don’t you worry. His prints are bound to be all over the car.”

  Chapter 62

  Two days after entering Miami as Jeffrey and Elizabeth Gordon, Emmy wheeled Troy toward the law office of Alexander Tate. The con was on.

  “Twelve o’clock sharp,” she said, looking at her watch. “Here we go.”

  “How can you be so sure he’s going to walk through that door?” Troy asked. “We only have one data point.”

  “He’s punctilious. You’ll see.”

  “Punctilious?”

  “You doctors have your vocabulary, we psychics
have ours. Are you excited?”

  “I feel like I’m going into combat.”

  “We are,” Emmy said. “Really makes you feel alive, doesn’t it?”

  Troy looked back over his shoulder at his partner. “You know, you’re right. I never would have guessed it, but I think I’m getting hooked.”

  On more than just the job I hope, Emmy thought, looking up at the building before them. Tate’s office was not the penthouse floor of a majestic downtown high-rise as they had hypothesized while stowaways aboard the Neptune. Rather it occupied a few modest rooms on the third floor of a suburban office park, wedged between a podiatrist and medical billing firm.

  The sliding glass door opened to their approach just as Tate stepped off the elevator.

  Troy mumbled “Punctilious” just loud enough for Emmy to hear but did not look back to see her smile.

  Tate was a handsome man for a back-office attorney, with a full head of chocolate hair and one of those semi-firm physiques that screamed club membership. She dropped her purse as their eyes met, sending pills across the pavement around Tate’s feet. “I’m so sorry,” she said, bumping into him once and then again as they both bent over to retrieve the spilled medication. “So clumsy of me.”

  “No problem,” Tate said, giving her an appreciative once-over. “It happens to the best of us.”

  They worked together to reassemble Emmy’s purse while Troy looked on from the wheelchair. Then she said, “Thank you so much,” stood, and pushed Troy into the lobby. Tate said “My pleasure,” and made for his car.

  “How’d you do?” Troy asked, once the elevator door closed behind them. Emmy turned to him and produced Tate’s cell phone in her hand as if by magic. Then she turned it off.

  “Very impressive,” Troy said.

  “That was the easy part. Now, get into character. Remember, you’re old-money rich and accustomed to getting your way. Your body may no longer be what it used to, but your mind is still sharp as a whip.”

  “Just who do you think you’re talking to, young lady? I’ve been dealing with situations like these since before you were born.”

  “Perfect,” Emmy said as the elevator doors opened. She assumed the fawning air of a pretty young nurse caring for a rich old man and began pushing him toward suite 3B.

  During their two partial days of surveillance, Troy and Emmy had determined that The Law Offices of Alexander Tate and Associates employed just three people, including Tate himself and two women. Judging by their cars and carriage, Emmy speculated that the younger woman was a fellow attorney working for Tate, while the older one was a secretary—or legal assistant in the vernacular. Alice, the secretary, seemed mildly surprised to find that they had unscheduled visitors. “May I help you?” She asked.

  “I certainly hope so,” Troy said, in his best septuagenarian voice. “We’re here to see Alex.”

  “I’m afraid Mister Tate is not in right now. He has a working lunch.”

  “Not anymore he doesn’t,” Troy said, raising his voice. “Get him on the phone. Tell him Kostas Kanasis is here, and I don’t have time to wait.”

  “Yes sir. I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Please do,” Troy said, looking back over his shoulder at Emmy and shaking his head at Tate’s audacity.

  “I’m afraid his phone is going straight to voice mail. He must have it off. Would you like me to leave a message?”

  Troy shook his head and raised his voice. “I need a person, not a message, and I need him now.”

  “Is everything okay out here,” a woman asked, appearing from the back much to Alice’s relief.

  “Mister Kanasis here has urgent business with Mister Tate,” Alice said.

  “He should be back any minute,” the woman said. “I can recommend a good restaurant nearby if you would like to get some lunch.”

  Emmy did not like the words back any minute—it would be a disaster if Tate returned before they left—but she sensed that Tate’s coworker was just being diplomatic.

  Troy said, “Look, Miss …”

  “Sylvia,” she said. “Sylvia Dashell.”

  “Well, Sylvia, any minute is not good enough. Can you guarantee me that it will be one of the next ten minutes?”

  “No sir, I’m afraid I can’t.”

  “Because that’s all the time I have, I—” He held up a hand, cutting himself off and deflating a bit of pressure from the room.

  “The problem, Sylvia, is that I have to be back on my plane very shortly. I’m hosting an important dinner this evening on Grand Cayman. The banking commissioner and three ambassadors will be there. Besides, I’m not really here for Alex’s legal advice. I just need to review my records. Perhaps you could help me?”

  “Mister Tate doesn’t like—”

  “Mister Tate doesn’t like losing his best customers,” Troy interjected decisively. “I’m sure we can agree on that.”

  Sylvia looked over at Alice who shrugged. Emmy sensed that they were about to hit a wall and chimed in. “We just need to make a copy of Mister Kanasis’s bank records. We don’t need to make any transactions,” she said, proffering a Cayman Islands Driver License with a picture of Troy made up to look like Kostas Kanasis. “It should just take you a minute. I’m sure Mister Tate has the file in order.”

  After a tense moment, Sylvia reached out and accepted the license. She gave it a quick, cursory glance, and then said, “Please hold on a minute.”

  Emmy used the occasion to slip Tate’s cell phone onto the corner of Alice’s desk.

  Sylvia returned three minutes later, wearing a smile. “Why don’t you come back to my office.”

  Once they were resituated, Sylvia asked, “Which records, exactly, do you need copied?”

  Deviating from the script they had rehearsed, Troy beckoned her over toward him so that he could whisper in her ear. Whatever he said, his improvisation worked. Sylvia backed away when he was done and said, “That should be simple enough. Just give me a minute.”

  Troy avoided Emmy’s eye while they waited, trying to stay in character no doubt.

  It did not take Sylvia long. When she returned she slid an envelope into Troy’s hand.

  Troy said, “Thank you” in his most sincere voice and then he added the phrase that Emmy had him memorize. “I’m a pretty good judge of character, Sylvia, and I get the feeling I can confide in you. Can I confide in you, Sylvia?”

  “Why yes, yes of course.”

  “I have the strong suspicion that something funny is going on. No hard facts, mind you, it’s more of a feeling. Given your tender young age, I don’t suppose you know what I mean …?”

  “I think I understand, Mister Kanasis.”

  “Please, call me Kostas.”

  “What can I do for you, Kostas?” Sylvia asked.

  “I’d like you to keep an eye on my account for the next few weeks.”

  “Keep an eye on it?”

  “Yes, I’d like you to be my eyes. I’d like you to monitor my account and call me at this number,” he held out a thick, embossed card, “and only this number any time funds come in, or go out. Just till the end of the month. Could you do that for me, Sylvia? I’d be most grateful.”

  “Well, sure, I’d be happy too. But perhaps Mister Tate—”

  Troy held up his hand. “Checks and balances, Sylvia. Checks and balances. Let’s just keep this between us.”

  Chapter 63

  “The ballistics report is back, Captain.”

  Honey could tell by the tone of Susanna’s voice that he was not going to like what she had to say. The cop killers had somehow slipped through his massive dragnet and their trail was now seventy-two hours cold. More bad news would be a perfect cap to the worst five days of his professional life. “Give it to me.”

  Susanna held out the piece of paper, obviously not wanting to be the bearer.

  “Why don’t you just tell me what it says.”

  Susanna looked down at the floor for a moment, then looked back up and
said, “It says that the couple in question could not have killed Jacobs. He was killed by a high velocity rifle round. The shooter had to be on the other side of the avenue at the very least.”

  What the hell was going on, Honey wondered. “Is that it?”

  “The rest is technical.” She proffered the printout again. “Perhaps you better read it.”

  Honey took the paper and gave it a quick glance. Ballistics wasn’t his bailiwick and he was not in the mood to pretend. As he handed the report back to Susanna to file, his eyes landed on the address in the header. Solomon Bank and Trust was located at number nine Elisabeth Avenue.

  He felt a warm glow fill his chest as clarity dawned.

  He knew where he had seen that address before.

  Chapter 64

  As she pushed Troy’s wheelchair from Tate’s office back to their rental car, Emmy could sense his excitement. The mysterious document he had procured with a secretive whisper was obviously both a major clue and the confirmation of some theory. She had no idea what either was. Despite her burning desire to know, however, she vowed not to ask. She wanted to figure it out on her own.

  “You did great,” Emmy said, sliding into the driver’s seat. “I think you’re a natural.”

  Troy said, “Thanks,” in his normal voice after removing his wig and nose prosthesis. Then he flipped down the sun visor to expose the mirror, and began attacking his makeup with handy wipes. “I’m glad I don’t have to do this every evening. What a pain.”

  She put the car into drive and started fishing, “To the airport?”

  Troy looked over at her with a mischievous smile. “Yep.”

  “Where are we flying?”

  “I’m not sure yet. Kind of exciting isn’t it?”

  “Because you haven’t opened the envelope.”

  “That’s right.”

  Now that Troy knew she was playing the game, Emmy was doubly determined not to ask. She considered what she knew. Kostas Kanasis was a cutout. He was laundering Luther’s money without knowing it and shielding him from his crimes. An attorney in Miami was their middle man, but he was half blind. Tate only knew Kostas’s identity. He couldn’t know Luther’s identity because then there would be a chain instead of a cutout. So what document could Tate have that would help them? Emmy was stumped.