“Maiming? What’s that?”
I glanced at the sheet on my desk. “Sharky used some kinda knife, maybe a carton cutter, on some poor woman’s face. He cut two long slices on each cheek and one across her forehead. Never convicted.” I looked back into the camera. “Let me play you a voicemail he sent to Gracie’s secret phone.”
I held the flip-phone near the computer’s built-in microphone and pressed a key. Gracie, this is me. You better not come back to New York without my money. Have a good time at the Super Bowl. Just remember that a lot of your good times come from me. Jerry’s too. If you don’t pay me Wednesday after the game, you’d better start looking over your shoulder. Remember what happened to Tawanda Grisham. But maybe I’ll start with Jerry to show you that I mean business. That way you still have a career.
“Jerry, do you know who Tawanda Grisham is?”
Greenbaum’s eyebrows raised. “Ohmigod. She’s the actress—was the actress, uh, the acid attack, right? I remember the story on the news. You think Sharky would throw acid on me?”
“I’ve never met the man, Jerry. The question is: Do you think he would throw acid on you?”
Greenbaum paused for a few seconds. “The newspapers said Tawanda Grisham’s attack may have been drug-related. There were rumors she bought drugs from someone and didn’t pay. The police never found out who did it. Ms. Grisham wouldn’t cooperate. She feared for her life if she helped the police.” He made a face. “Yeah, Sharky would throw acid.” He placed both hands flat on the desk. “Okay, what can I do to help?”
“When was the last time you heard from Graciela?”
“Just a sec. I’ll check my calendar.” He moved his computer mouse. “Yeah, I remember now. She called me the day of the Sports 24/7 party.”
“What did you talk about?”
“Just who was going to be there. Which people she should schmooze. Same old, same old. Pretty routine stuff.”
“Did she mention any other plans she might have?”
Greenbaum closed his eyes for a second. “No, she didn’t.”
“Did she mention Vicente Vidali?”
“Geez, don’t tell me she’s involved with that mobster.”
“Okay, I won’t tell you that. But did she ever mention him?”
Greenbaum said, “God, no. That guy kills people for crissakes.”
“How about the Double Down casinos in Atlantic City or Wilmington? She ever mention them?”
“Nope.”
“Okay. I’ll email you my contact information. If you think of anything that would help, or if you hear from Graciela, call me anytime, day or night.”
“Wait, wait, don’t go. What do you intend to do about Sharky?”
I shrugged. “Me? Nothing. Sharky’s not my problem. I don’t owe him any money.”
Chapter 33
Renate Crowell, a reporter with the Port City Press-Journal, took a chair in my conference room. I met her there because I didn’t want her to see the bullet holes in my office. I had repaired the office door; I let the bullet holes slide for a while. Who knows? I might need them for evidence.
I sat at the coffee table. “How are things with the princess of the Pee-Jay?”
“Hmm. ‘Princess of the Pee-Jay’. That has a nice ring to it, handsome. But I didn’t come over here to have you blow smoke up my dress, although it could be fun if you did.” She laughed and picked up her coffee.
“Impossible, you always wear pants.”
She glanced down at her designer jeans. “I’ll wear a dress if you want to try it sometime.”
Renate meant what she said: She’d flirted with me every time we met for over a year. She was smart, funny, and attractive, but I never knew how to talk to women about such things. I retreated to the familiar. “What can I do for you?”
“You’ve been meeting with Bob Martinez.”
“That’s not news. We’ve been friends since grade school. Everyone knows that. You want to do a human-interest story on Bob and me?”
“Not quite. I’m chasing down some rumors, and I want your take on them.”
“I don’t believe much in rumors. What have you heard?”
“I saw Bob and Graciela at the Sports 24/7 Network party at the Port City Palace Saturday night.”
“That’s not a rumor; that’s an undeniable fact. I saw their pictures in the Pee-Jay the next day. You must’ve had a staff photographer with you.”
I sipped my coffee. Renate followed suit.
“I take a photographer whenever the managing editor will let me. Since this was a Super Bowl party, it was an easy sell.” She set her cup down. “The next morning, you and Bob had breakfast together in the Port City Palace coffee shop.”
“Let’s put that historic meeting on the front page tomorrow, Renate. A hundred people saw us together. Hell, Bob let a little boy’s dad take his picture with the football hero. Human interest, maybe. Not newsworthy. What’s your point?”
“Graciela didn’t join you for breakfast.”
“Neither did you.”
“She’s Bob’s fiancée. You’d expect them to have breakfast together.”
I shrugged. “Lots of models don’t eat breakfast. I’m told that it helps them keep the pounds off. Also not newsworthy.”
“Graciela hasn’t been seen since the Sports 24/7 Network party.”
I seldom get in trouble for keeping quiet. I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing.
“The rumor is that she’s missing.”
I waited some more. It’s one of my better skills.
“Do you know where she is?”
“Renate, I don’t know where a lot of people are. If you had called me on a cellphone, I wouldn’t know where you were. You could call from Timbuktu. I don’t know where the Port City mayor is, or the governor of Wyoming. Why should I know where Graciela is?”
“There were two other Super Bowl parties she would’ve been expected to attend, with or without Bob. She wasn’t there. Bob Martinez was seen at an event where other players had their wives or girlfriends. Bob was alone.”
I raised an eyebrow. “What does this have to do with me?”
“I’d like to talk to Bob Martinez, but I don’t have his cellphone number. I knew where to find you, so here I am. Besides, you’re cute. Care to comment?”
“I’m glad you think I’m cute. So does my mother.”
She laughed again. “I stepped right into that one.”
“Here’s my comment, and you may quote me: I am glad you are here. I am always glad to see the princess of the Pee-Jay.” I leaned back in my chair. “You didn’t write that down. Do you want me to repeat it?”
“Very funny, smart guy. You know I want a comment on Graciela’s disappearance.”
“Alleged disappearance.” I felt a guilty twinge lying to her. She was just making a living. “Again, Renate, I don’t see what this has to do with me.”
“I heard Graciela likes heroin…a lot. So much so that she went to rehab last summer.”
“Renate, I never met Graciela until the three of us had dinner in New York right after the AFC Championship game. I don’t know much about her—probably less than you do.”
“Did you know she was in rehab last summer?”
I smiled. “Nice try. That question assumes Graciela has been to rehab. I don’t know if she has, and I don’t care. It’s none of my business…or yours. Even if the rumor were true, I wouldn’t know about it. I don’t travel in those circles.” I lowered my voice. “A word of advice between friends, Renate?”
She nodded.
“A professional journalist like you knows that accusations like that, if put into print, could be considered libelous. I do remember at our dinner in New York two weeks ago, Gracie happened to mention that her agent and her attorney are both real sharks when it comes to protecting her reputation. Just saying.” I smiled to soften the tone. “I know you only wanted to see if you could get a reaction out of me. I don’t take it personally; you’re just t
rying to do your job.”
Renate grinned. “Can’t blame a girl for trying.” She flipped a page back in her notepad. “I know that two suspicious looking guys passed her an envelope of drugs in an elevator in the Port City Palace the night she disappeared.”
That had to be Wally, the hotel guard who showed me the security videos. There was nothing I could do about it now. I couldn’t very well shoot him. And it was a juicy story.
I stood to signal the meeting was over.
Renate remained seated. “I know that you and Snoop watched the hotel security videos of Graciela and the mysterious envelope and the two mysterious men.” She paused. “And that she left the hotel at 3:30 in the morning. Alone.”
I remained standing and said nothing.
Renate took the hint and stood. She turned at the door. “Read the Lifestyle section in the Pee-Jay tomorrow for my article on Super Bowl wives and sweethearts—including the rumor that Graciela is missing.”
“Thanks for coming by, Renate. It’s always nice to see your smiling face. You can quote me on that.”
Chapter 34
“Bob, Graciela was last seen on the Double Scotch, a mega-yacht that belongs to Vicente Vidali. You know who he is. He’s bad news to anybody who comes in contact with him. Gracie is involved from her expertly painted toenails to her professionally styled hair.”
The Jets quarterback pushed his dinner plate away. He went to look out the window. “You don’t know if she’s there against her will.”
“You live in a dream world, amigo. Vidali’s two thugs shot up my office to make me stop looking for her. He’s kidnapped her, all right.”
Bob paced across the room. “Why would Vidali kidnap her?”
“We’ve been over this. The same reason most kidnappers do it—for ransom.”
“Ransom? Nobody’s contacted me asking for money.”
“Is there an echo in here? I told you: Do the math. Vidali will ransom her by demanding that you lose the game.”
“Holy shit. You were serious about that?”
“Bob, sometimes your head is as thick as your football helmet. You gotta let me call the cops. Now.”
“But she knows him, remember? They met on the hotel elevator.”
“That meeting was for Vidali to pass her an envelope stuffed with cash.”
“What for?”
“Well, it wasn’t to pay her bills.”
“How do you know that?”
“The envelope in the video was not quite an inch thick. An inch of hundred dollar bills is right at twenty-two thousand dollars. Vidali maybe gave her ten or twenty thousand dollars. That would buy her time on her credit cards, but it wouldn’t solve her problem. No, she needs a lot more money than that.”
“What if it was Euros, Eighty-Eight? They come in 500 Euro bills. I’ve seen them.”
“It’s a waste of time to discuss this. Where would she spend Euros? No, that envelope was for something else—maybe money for her to disappear and not leave a credit card trail. Or a gesture of good faith, with more to come later.”
“Okay. But what about this Sharky character? Is he involved somehow?”
“He’s one reason she’s desperate for money. The credit card companies won’t throw acid on her; Sharky will.”
“Whaddya think she’s up to?”
“Vidali passed the money to Gracie so she could go into hiding without leaving a trail. If you didn’t know where she was, then Vidali could make a credible threat to harm her unless you lost the game.”
“But in that case, he wouldn’t be holding her against her will.”
I shrugged. “Maybe Vidali didn’t trust her to stay hidden. So he grabs her from the Palace parking garage and hides her on his yacht. Or maybe Gracie had a change of heart and decided she wanted out.”
“You think she’s involved in this?”
“I don’t know. That’s what I’ve been saying to you. Hell, the whole thing might be her idea from the get-go. That’s the point—we don’t know. Maybe there’s an innocent explanation for all this, but I doubt it. I have to find her to ask her what’s going on. The police could help me do that.”
“No. You can find her without the cops. If she’s on Vidali’s boat, maybe you can search the area with a helicopter.”
“Tomorrow’s Friday. It would take all day to search from Fort Lauderdale down to Key Largo. You’re talking several thousand dollars to rent the copter, but, more than that, I don’t want to take the time when the police have their own helicopters.”
“I’ll write you another check.” He sat at the table and pulled his checkbook from a pocket.
I shook my head. “We’re wasting time, and Gracie is with a mobster and murderer. And you think you can solve this if you write me another check. It takes more than money to solve this.” I put my hand on Bob’s shoulder. “Amigo, you have a secret you’re afraid will come out if we involve the police. But whatever it is, is it worth risking Gracie’s life? C’mon, amigo, tell me.”
Bob finished writing the check and handed it to me. “Here’s another ten thousand. No cops, Eighty-Eight.”
Chapter 35
I handed over a set of photos of the Double Scotch to the helicopter pilots, Marie and Richard Leonard. I’d known Marie in Afghanistan when she’d flown supplies and airdrops for the Triple Seven, my Special Forces unit. She had met Richard over there and they had married when they both rotated stateside. Marie got pregnant, and they let their enlistments expire. They started an air charter service in Coral Gables. Good people.
Flamer had hacked the computers of the company that insured the Double Scotch. He had copied the yacht’s survey done for the insurance company. It included a complete set of photos and plans.
Marie glanced at the photos. “This is a little different from satellite photos of an LZ in Kandahar, ain’t it, Sergeant?”
“Shouldn’t be any enemy fire on this recon, Marie.”
She handed the photos back. “You keep them. You’ll be my spotter. You and Snoop.”
“The Double Scotch is a hundred sixty-three feet long, with a thirty-three-foot beam,” I told the pilots.
Richard took notes in a small spiral notebook. “That means she won’t be in any narrow canals like the ones dug into the mainland. What’s her draft?”
I looked at my notes. “She draws nine feet six inches.”
He turned to Marie. “She won’t be near the shore, Babe. She’ll be in the big water or moored at a big marina. We’re in luck with the tide.”
“How so?” I asked.
“It’s ebbing right now. She’s got to stay near water that’s at least ten feet deep at low tide. That severely restricts her options, especially if she’s in Biscayne Bay. It’ll make the search go faster.”
Marie glanced at the sun low on the horizon. “Until the sun gets higher, Dick can’t use the color of the water to spot the shallow areas. For the next two hours all the water will look about the same.”
“That’s why I gave y’all the nautical charts. Dick, your co-pilot can help you stay over the deep areas. Start at the Card Sound Road bridge at the south end of Biscayne Bay and head north. She has a thirty-foot Zodiac tender at the stern of the bottom deck. There’s a smaller Zodiac on one davit on the bow. There’s a hot tub on the sun deck.” I pointed them out on the photos. “That should help you identify her from the air.”
“Right,” Richard said.
“Marie will fly with Snoop and me. We’ll start at Seeti Bay and work our way south in the other helicopter.”
“What if we meet in the middle and still haven’t found her?” Richard asked.
“She may have headed to the Bahamas or else she headed north with the Gulf Stream. We’ll make that decision after we finish this first pass. Stay in touch by radio every ten or fifteen minutes. Any questions?”
He folded his notepad and stepped up on the strut of the helicopter. “We’re ready.”
I gave him a thumbs-up as Marie, Snoop, and I trotte
d to the other chopper. “Let’s roll.”
Marie pulled up on the collective. “Tallyho, Sergeant.” The chopper rose like an express elevator. She tweaked the cyclic and it banked steeply over Coral Gables where their base station shrank away in the distance.
The thump-thump-thump of the blades carried me back momentarily to the Middle East. Old battle scars throbbed. I blinked back a tear and focused on the turquoise water of Biscayne Bay as it flashed by below us.
Snoop watched my face. In some ways, he knew me better than my parents. I had told him stories I could never tell them.
I glanced at him. I covered my microphone with my hand and mouthed, “I’m okay, Snoop.” He nodded.
I uncovered the mic and gave Marie directions. “Head up the Intracoastal to the top of Seeti Bay, then circle clockwise around the shore.”
“Roger,” I heard through the headset.
We’d been airborne for ten minutes and just passed Harbor Island when my headset clicked. “Chuck, this is Dick. You ain’t gonna believe this, buddy, but I found her.”
Marie was monitoring the radio and had already tilted the cyclic and started to turn south. “Where is she, Dick?”
“Due east of Turkey Point Nuclear halfway to Elliott Key. She’s swinging at anchor. You want me to babysit her, Chuck?”
“I don’t want them to know we’re interested, Dick. Head back to base. We’ll reconnoiter for ourselves.”
It took only seventeen minutes. “Look over there, Snoop, on the horizon. That’s got to be it.”
I tapped Marie’s shoulder and pointed. “Don’t head straight for it. I don’t want them to know we’ve found them. Fly down Elliott Key like any tourist. Then head toward Turkey Point. Fly slow.”
“Got it.” Marie banked the chopper toward the north end of Elliott Key. “I’ll follow the road down to the campground.” She slowed and cruised leisurely for two minutes. “I always tell customers that Elliott Key is uninhabited. The whole island is part of the Biscayne National Park. See those boat slips? A boat is the only way to get there.”
“Or a helicopter,” said Snoop.
Marie smiled. “Or a helicopter. That campground is the only place to stay overnight.”
Quarterback Trap (A Carlos McCrary novel Book 3) Page 11