Caribbean Hustle (A Nick Teffinger Thriller / Read in Any Order)
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“Did you see the victim’s face?”
“No,” she said. “When I’m looking through his eyes I can only see what he sees. It’s not like I’m there next to him and can look around wherever I want. He didn’t look at her face, at least not right then.”
“Tell me about her stomach.”
“It was tight, in good shape. I would say she was under thirty for sure.”
“White?”
She nodded.
“White but tanned.”
“When did this happen?”
“The vision? About a month ago,” she said. “Here’s the funny part though. You asked me before if I see things in real time. When I saw the guy stalking Station on Monday, that was pretty much real time. It came to me shortly before noon, which was about ten Denver time. That’s when Station came to work. The sounds and the picture fit together. The stomach girl, though, I don’t think that was in real time.”
“Why not?”
“Because the visual of her was mixed together with a visual of the inside of a restaurant. It was like I was watching TV and flicking between channels. He couldn’t have been in both places at the same time. I think he was in a restaurant at the time and thinking about what he did at an earlier time.”
“So you were seeing his thoughts?”
She shrugged.
“Yes and no. I was getting the visual part of his thoughts. I never get feelings or emotions or complicated thoughts or what he’s planning or anything like that. What I get is a lot more stripped down, like what you’d get from a video camera, meaning visual and audio and that’s it. I think I was picking up the visual part of a memory he was replaying in his mind at a later time.” She cast her eyes on the building where Tarzan lived. “Can we go in there?”
“Why?”
“I’ve never been in a killer’s place.”
Teffinger hopped off the tailgate.
“Sure, why not?”
She followed.
Then they headed for the building.
On the way he said, “How long have you been having these flashes?”
“Not long. They started about three months ago.”
“So it’s a recent thing—”
“Relatively.”
“Did something happen in your life around that time?”
“Like what?”
He shrugged.
“I don’t know, something traumatic; did you bump your head or did someone close to you die or something like that?”
She tensed.
Then she said, “No, nothing happened.”
“So they just all of a sudden started?”
“Right.”
6
Day Two
June 5
Thursday Morning
Teffinger rolled a rusty 55-gallon drum under a window, pried plywood off with a piece of rebar, and gained entry to the building. Inside it was quiet with no signs of transient intrusion. Shafts of sunlight punched through dusty air. They took the stairs up to the top floor, which was an airy open space with distressed wooden plank floors, high ceilings and walls of windows, most of which were surprisingly intact.
“This is where Tarzan lived,” he said. “Before he bought the place it was a shoe factory.”
Kovi-Ke approached.
She came close, almost stomach-to-stomach.
“Keep your eyes open,” she said. “Think about Tarzan for a minute. Don’t think of anything else, only him.”
“Why?”
“Please, do it for me.”
Teffinger complied.
At first the images were vague. But as he remembered, they became more visual and burned deeper and deeper into his mind.
Kovi-Ke stepped back.
“You want to kill him,” she said.
“Now you’re reading my mind?”
“No, I’m just looking into your eyes. What I see there is that you want to kill him.”
Teffinger shrugged.
“Maybe.”
“You would, if you got the chance; if you could justify it somehow, you’d do it.”
“Maybe.”
“There are no maybes,” she said. “If you could justify it, if he was escaping or something like that, you’d take him down, you’d do it in a heartbeat and never look back. The world would be a better place.”
“That last part’s true, that’s for sure.”
“So is the first part. It’s okay, I understand.”
“Understand what?”
“The feeling. I wanted to be sure you did too, before I tell you what I’m going to tell you.”
“Which is what, exactly?”
“Which is, that’s how I feel.”
“About the killer?”
She nodded.
“I don’t want to see through his eyes anymore.”
“Killing someone is never the right answer.”
She came close, with her lips almost touching his. “You’re not in his head. If you were, you’d understand better. But that’s only half of it. The other half is that I’m pretty sure he’s in my head the same way I’m in his.”
“You mean he can see through your eyes?”
She put her arms around his neck.
“Yes, sporadically.”
“What makes you think that?”
“It’s just a feeling I get,” she said. “It’s like there’s a shadow in my head.” She paused and added, “He’s trying to figure out who I am.”
“Why?”
“So he can kill me.”
She spun off and broke into a dance, an unashamed, hypnotic dance, so entrancing that it filled Teffinger’s eyes and brain and soul with a hunger he’d never felt before.
He wanted her.
There was nothing else in the world, only her.
It made no sense.
She was more wrong for him than almost any woman on earth.
It didn’t matter.
She was like a rock to the head. Smack, there you go, now deal with it, not in ten seconds, now, right now in this nanosecond of your life.
She pulled the baseball hat off, released her ponytail and shook her hair loose. Nothing sexier had ever happened on the face of the earth.
She unbuttoned her shirt and threw it across the room.
Then she took off her bra, waved it over her head and tossed it to Teffinger. He caught it and draped it over his shoulder.
It was his now.
No one else had it, only him.
Then he went to her.
She was waiting for him.
She was waiting for him with every molecule of life in her sinful little body.
7
Day Two
June 5
Thursday Morning
Back at homicide, Teffinger was in trouble and knew it. Kovi-Ke was a sudden drug in his life and he was already addicted. She was a bad drug, one that would kill him; he didn’t know that for sure, but that was his sense. Either way, he didn’t care. He’d die with the taste of her on his tongue and the sins of her legs wrapped around his body.
He headed for the coffee, only to be intercepted by Sydney Heatherwood, the newbie of the department, hand stolen by Teffinger out of vice a year ago. Her mocha African-American skin played well against a crisp white blouse and the tautness of her athletic body couldn’t be denied.
“You look weird,” she said. “You’re up to something.”
He poured milk in a cup, topped it with coffee and took a noisy slurp.
“Do me a favor and pull the Tarzan file.”
She frowned.
“He’s long gone, give it up.”
“Please and thank you.”
“You’re chasing shadows.”
“Actually, the opposite.”
At his desk he dialed Dr. Leigh Sandt, the FBI profiler in Quantico, who actually answered with a live human voice instead of a recorded one. He pulled up an image of a classy fiftyish woman with Tina Turner legs and a wedding ring the size of a small planet.
>
“It’s me,” he said.
“Teff?”
“Yes. I need a favor.”
“No, no favors,” she said. “You did something and didn’t tell me about it.”
“What’d I do?”
“Let me give you a hint,” she said. “It’s sitting on the corner of my desk. It has the initials GQ on it.”
“Oh, that.”
He’d almost forgotten about it. GQ was doing a spread called GQs On The Street. They snapped his photo one day down on the 16th Street Mall, did a short interview and had him sign a release, with no promises he’d be used. That was over two months ago. He’d never heard from them since.
“I can’t believe you’re on the cover of GQ and don’t even tell me.”
“I’m on the cover?”
“Are you telling me you didn’t know?”
“Not really, but listen, it’s not important. What is important is that I’m trying to find out if there’s anyone out there who slits a woman’s stomach open after he kills her and shoves in a glass vial. There would be a piece of paper in the vial.”
“Like a note or something?”
“A piece of paper, folded and then rolled. It would say, 16 Weeks.”
“16 Weeks?”
“Right.”
“What’s it mean?”
“I have no idea,” he said. “To tell you the truth, I doubt that it even exists.”
She called back two hours later and said, “Alley Savannah.” The words were a two-by-four to the side of Teffinger’s head. “She was stabbed in the back of the neck in Miami almost exactly two years ago. The guy you want to talk to is Lance Black. He’s the detective in charge. Here’s his number. Got a pencil?”
He did; he did indeed.
“Thanks, I owe you one.”
“One? What kind of math are you using?”
He smiled.
“It’s called Teffinger math.”
“Well, you ought to bottle it and sell it. I know I’d buy some.”
“I’ll send you a free six pack.”
Thirty seconds later he was on the phone with Detective Lance Black who confirmed everything with one minor clarification, “There was a bit of a space between the 1 and the 6. It might be 1 space 6 instead of 16.”
“Maybe he had prior victims and number 1, his first one, he kept for 6 weeks.”
“Could be. Whatever it means, we never figured it out.”
“Who knows about the vial and the note?”
“If you mean, was it ever made public, the answer is no.”
“It didn’t get leaked?”
“No. That’s not the question though. The question is how do you know about it?”
Teffinger tightened.
“It’s complicated.”
“It’s complicated?”
“Yes.”
“As in, you’re not going to tell me what’s going on?”
Teffinger exhaled.
“Look, I don’t want to be an asshole, but my gut’s telling me this is going to play out better if it’s not done in pieces. Let me work it. I’ll give you everything you’re looking for when the timing is right.”
“Is that final?”
“I’m sorry. I’m an ass.”
“No one’s ever kept me out before,” Black said. “If it was anyone but you, I’d be upset.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It means I was one of the three hundred people at your seminar in New York last year.” He paused and added, “Let me ask you one thing, though.”
“Sure.”
“Did you get the information from a female?”
Teffinger cleared his throat.
“Yes.”
“Then you’re talking to the killer,” Black said. “The victim was strictly into girls. She was at a lesbian bar the night she disappeared, a place called Blackbird Ordinary. I’ve expected a female killer from day one.”
Teffinger pictured it.
It wasn’t pretty.
“Can you send me the file?”
“It’s on the way. Give me your email address.” Teffinger did and Black added, “Be careful. I don’t know what kind of game she’s playing but you’re obviously smack dab in it.”
“I’ll be in touch.” He almost powered off and added, “Are you still there?”
“Yes.”
“The seminar, was it any good?”
“Let me put it this way,” Black said. “I was sitting next to Lori Bender, a newbie who isn’t all that hard on the eyes, if you catch my drift. She just about had an orgasm watching you. That’s as close to sex with her as I’ll ever get, so in a way I owe you one. The donuts weren’t bad, either.”
“So, two out of three?”
“Right. And that ain’t bad, at least according to Meat Loaf.”
8
Day Two
June 5
Thursday Afternoon
According to the file, Alley Savannah disappeared exactly two years to the day, on June 5; far too precise to be a coincidence. So what was Kovi-Ke’s game? Was she in town to kill someone else right under a detective’s nose? Was she trying to get Teffinger so lust-drunk that he couldn’t think straight?
One thing was for sure.
Station was the target.
On second thought, wait. Maybe Station was a decoy. Maybe someone else was the target. Maybe it was even Teffinger himself. In a crazy way that actually makes sense. She gets him all caught up in what’s going on with Station and then—wham!—she takes him when his head’s down between her legs.
If that was the case though, how did she pick him out?
Did she see his photo on GQ?
Was that it?
Did she tap her finger on his face and say, You’re next, baby. Say bye-bye.
A file suddenly plopped on his desk, the Tarzan file, compliments of Sydney who said, “You look like you just ate a ghost.”
He didn’t doubt it.
“Do you have time to do a little project?”
She looked skeptical.
“As in what?”
“Kovi-Ke Gray,” he said. “I need everything you can get on her.” He told her what he knew; she was from Jamaica, ran a dive shop called the Ugly Tuna, was negotiating with the Jamaican government to harvest pirate ships, etcetera. “Go deep. Oh, and pay particular attention to whether she has any ties to Miami or a lesbian bar called Blackbird Ordinary. If she was in Miami in June two years ago, I’d really like to know it. She may have killed someone down there and she might be in Denver to do a repeat.”
He headed downtown on foot, a ten-minute jaunt through buzz and congestion. His heart raced and confusion ricocheted inside his skull. Even with everything he knew about Kovi-Ke, he couldn’t push her out. She was in him, in his blood, in his breath, and in the deep, dark, secret parts of his brain, not to mention the nasty parts.
The sun bounced off his face.
It was a constant, an old friend.
Kovi-Ke.
Kovi-Ke.
Kovi-Ke.
He turned the final corner, hoping to find her where he first saw her this morning, staking out Station.
She was there.
The corner of his mouth turned up ever so slightly as he headed over.
“How’s the hunt going?”
“Not good.”
“Nothing?”
“Not yet.”
Teffinger shifted his feet and said, “Alley Savannah. Does that name ring a bell?”
“No. Should it?”
“I did a little research,” he said. “She’s the stomach girl, the one you told me about.”
“So she’s real?”
“Was,” he said. “You said your vision was a month ago.”
“That’s right.”
“She was killed two years ago, exactly two years ago as a matter of fact, on June fifth. Maybe your friend is on a schedule.”
Kovi-Ke didn’t hesitate.
“He’s going to take Station ton
ight. We have to do something.”
Teffinger nodded.
“We will,” he said. “What other visions have you had of the guy murdering someone? Any?”
She nodded.
“I think so.”
“Tell me about them.”
A strange expression washed over her face, almost as if she was sinking into a trance.
“Are you okay?”
She said nothing.
He shook her shoulders, “Kovi-Ke.”
She looked at him but it was vague.
Then she focused and locked her eyes on him for several seconds. Her expression pulled back to normal and she said, “This isn’t good.”
“What isn’t?”
“I think he was just in my head. He was looking right at you.”
9
Day Two
June 5
Thursday Afternoon
Deep down Teffinger had to admit that the words—He was looking right at you—were unsettling, but not because there was someone behind Kovi-Ke’s eyes looking at him. That wasn’t possible. What was possible, however, is that Kovi-Ke was turning her plan tighter on Teffinger, getting closer to killing him. The so-called vision was nothing more than a ruse to try to shift the blame to someone else now that the act was approaching.
In a way that was good.
Station wasn’t the target.
Teffinger was.
Station was safe.
On second thought, that might not be totally true. Kovi-Ke might kill Station as a way to pretend that there really was a killer in town.
Damn it.
Every time Teffinger thought he had it figured out, it twisted away. He’d wrestled greased strippers that weren’t half as slippery.
His phone rang and a man’s voice came through, “Long time, huh?” Teffinger vaguely recognized the intonation but couldn’t place it. “You don’t know who this is?”
“No.”
“Wow, I’m crushed. I thought I owned a bigger part of your brain than that.”