From Cape Town with Love

by Blair Underwood

  “Something he said when we ran into each other in the hall before a hearing in South Africa: ‘I’m a little guy, but I have big people behind me.’”

  “Was he threatening you?”

  “I thought he meant the South African government. Rule of law. I’m wealthy, Mr. Hardwick. I was a celebrity, but I couldn’t trump the power of his nation. Now . . . I don’t know. What if he meant he was connected to that gang? Right before he left with the FBI this morning, he looked me dead in the eye and said, ‘I’m sorry.’ The sound of his voice chilled me, Ten.”

  “It’s an expression of condolence, not a confession,” I said. “He’s Nandi’s birth father, but he knows you’re the one who’s raising her.”

  Sofia was shaking her head. “No. It wasn’t that. My mind is clearing up, past all the crying—I don’t have time to sit and cry. Nandi needs me, and I’m noticing things I didn’t before. Things about Paki. I make my living from voices and emotion, and he meant it when he said ‘I’m sorry.’ He knew something.”

  The validity of the theory was too dependent on Sofia’s state of mind, but I wrote Paki’s name down and circled it.

  “Where’s Paki now?” I said.

  “With the FBI. I think.”

  “You’ve told them everything you told me?”

  Maitlin hesitated before she nodded, the way a bad actress might have played a lie. “Yes, but they’re looking in so many directions, like you said. Half of the city was at our house Sunday. I’m afraid you’re right: They might be getting lost.”

  “Are they searching Paki’s house?”

  “Yes, I think so. I don’t know if they found anything.”

  “So you want me to give him a closer look,” I said. “As if he’s the main suspect.”

  Maitlin nodded fervently. “Yes—if you can! I’ll give you his home and work addresses. You’ll know if he’s hiding something. Make him tell you the truth.” A fire in Maitlin’s eyes said Even if you have to break his bones to get it.

  “If I ask Paki too many questions and he’s involved, it might be bad for Nandi,” I said.

  “If I’m right, don’t let him go,” Maitlin said. “Not until she’s home.”

  Maitlin had already decided Paki’s guilt, and she wanted me to break him. I almost told her my name was Tennyson Hardwick, not Jack Bauer. If Sofia Maitlin was circling the crazy drain, I couldn’t let her drag me down with her.

  I looked at Rachel Wentz, waiting for her assessment.

  “I’ve known Sofia a long time, before we were working together,” Wentz said. “I know this woman like I know myself, and she’s not crazy. If she says Paki’s not acting right, you can bet your ass he’s hiding something.”

  An inside job could explain everything. Paki had helped plan the party, and he could have funneled information to the kidnappers to help them execute such a flawless abduction. His Aw-shucks act might have fooled Zukisa, the nanny, or she might have purposely deflected suspicion from him for her own reasons. Maybe Zukisa was in on it, too.

  “What about the nanny?” I said.

  They both shook their heads.

  “No way,” Maitlin said. “That poor woman was the one who first came to me and said she didn’t like the way Paki was acting. I was too upset over Nandi to notice.”

  “She’s brilliant,” Rachel Wentz said. “She’s on her way to medical school one day. What a story she is! She’s the loveliest, sweetest woman. She’s half out of her mind, she’s so worried.”

  “We tried to send her home,” Sofia said. “She wants to stay until Nandi comes back.”

  Zukisa probably wasn’t a suspect, and she still might have her job—if Nandi survived.

  I remembered how I’d been sent to the kitchen to babysit the cooks from South African Sun on Melrose in the moments before Nandi was snatched. Had they been Paki’s friends brushing me out of their way while Paki cheerfully sipped wine with Sofia?

  If Paki’s involved, maybe Nandi’s less likely to get hurt, I thought.

  Paki might have made his plan to cash in on his golden child, never expecting Nandi to get hurt. But once the drop went bad, was he worried about the temperament of the gang he was working with? Was that why he’d told Sofia he was sorry?

  It was still just a maybe, but maybe was enough to make anger coil in my chest.

  “I’ll take care of it,” I said.

  I told Marsha the story after Rachel Wentz dropped me off in front of the bookstore again. I’d decided against telling Maitlin that I had a tail. Marsha climbed out of the driver’s seat to let me drive. Her eyes were glued to her cell phone’s text field.

  “Let me guess . . . ,” Marsha said. “Women’s intuition?”

  “Cut her some slack,” I said. “It’s a hunch. I got vibes from him, too.”

  “I’ll ask around,” Marsha said as she texted someone, fingers flying. “Let’s see if we can find something better than vibes on this guy.”

  “Who are you asking?”

  “Yo’ grandma. Mind your business.”

  I chuckled. A few hours ago, even a small chuckle would have been inconceivable.

  “Let’s head for San Diego,” I said. “Even if Paki’s tied up with the FBI, we might be able to sniff around his workplace and find something to tie him to Kingdom of Heaven.”

  Marsha looked at her watch. It was 3:45.

  “Ten, I’ll give Maitlin and her hunches the benefit of the doubt . . . ,” Marsha began. “But we need to get back and stay on Simon. He’s a direct route to Spider, and that’s our best shot. I may be able to get our ears on Simon’s home phone, if that helps. Maybe his cell, too, but that’ll be trickier without custody of the phone. Paki’s up to his eyeballs in feds right now.”

  We were having our first real argument. There was a long silence.

  “Piece of advice, Ten?” Marsha said gently. “Don’t get attached to Maitlin. It’ll only make it harder on you if this goes to hell.”

  Probably Marsha’s life philosophy, I thought. Once, it had been mine, too.

  “Thanks, but I can take care of myself,” I said.

  “Just checking,” she said. “Sometimes emotions sway our judgment. I know this.”

  The car was idling, and we had to make a choice. I wanted to jump on Paki, but I respected Marsha’s opinion. Too many of my choices had been wrong so far, and Maitlin’s instincts had led her all the way to Hell.

  “We’ll do Simon,” I said. “We’ll hit Paki later tonight, or first thing in the morning.”

  Instead of starting surveillance on Nandi’s birth father, we raced back toward Baldwin Hills. There, we finally caught a break. The mechanic’s truck was just driving away. Simon’s engine was idling, and Simon was chatting on his cell phone in the shade of an awning, smoking a cigarette. Simon didn’t look nearly as pissed as I would have been.

  “Damn,” I said. “He could be talking to Spider right now, and we wouldn’t know.”

  “Patience, padowan,” Marsha said, a Star Wars reference that surprised me. “Young the day is.” She said it like Yoda. She really was a geek!

  We stayed out of sight at the other end of the parking lot and waited for him to leave.

  After five minutes, he drove off. We had almost missed him.

  I remember my father complaining about long hours of surveillance when I was a kid. Often, he had to work late, and sometimes I had to sleep at a neighbor’s house because he never came home. I got a taste of his old life as Marsha and I drove through Los Angeles tailing Simon O. The hours passed like years.

  After he left the restaurant, he headed straight to a park in Glendale, where an equally lanky thirteen-year-old boy wearing a bright blue soccer uniform met his car. Few other kids were in sight. Thanks to us, dad was more than a little bit late after soccer practice. I was glad the kid wasn’t any younger. That was at five thirty.

  Great, I thought. Paki’s off on his own, and we’re following the soccer dad.

  Almost as if he had a psychic bur
st, the kid gazed in our direction while we idled down the street, waiting. We were about thirty yards away, but he stared before he climbed into his car. Probably just admiring the ’Vette, but I was careful about my following distance. I got caught at a red light, but by then we knew it didn’t matter. Simon O. was headed home.

  “Maybe we’ll get lucky, and Spider’s at Simon’s house,” I said. “A rehearsal.”

  “And maybe Nandi will be there, too, dressed in her Sunday best,” Marsha muttered, flipping through the car’s radio stations, as she did every time she heard a commercial. Then she smiled sheepishly at me. “Sorry. Jokes are my way.”

  “Whatever works,” I said. But Marsha had stolen my next thought: Nandi might be at Simon’s house. Doing what? Playing in the backyard with Simon’s wife and kid?

  Simon pulled into the driveway of a quaint Craftsman almost the same shade of blue as Junior’s soccer uniform, except with white trim. No other cars were parked at the house, which sat at the end of a shaded upper-middle-class street. The houses were well kept, easily worth $700,00 or more. And I didn’t see any For Sale signs, which was rare during a recession.

  “Nice neighborhood,” I said.

  “I’m not surprised,” Marsha said. “Africans are this country’s most highly educated group of immigrants. As a group, they do very well. Simon’s brother has an accounting office about five miles from here. His wife is Kenyan, too. She’s a dentist. They earn six figures, and she pulls in most of it. They’re not hurting.”

  “Grandma told you all this?” I said.

  “Pretty sharp for an old lady.”

  We waited for Simon to get out of his car, but he didn’t. He and the kid seemed to be arguing. When the kid jumped out of the passenger seat to walk to the porch steps, Simon screeched out of the driveway. If he had turned left instead of right, he might have made us.

  Next time, I definitely wouldn’t try tailing anyone in a Corvette. Careful to keep out of his mirrors, I began following Simon again. Even his speed was predictable—never above the speed limit. Simon felt more and more like a dead end.

  “What’s Grandma saying about Nandi’s birth father?” I prodded Marsha.

  “Not much,” Marsha said. “No arrest record in South Africa. Works as a mechanic in San Diego. If there’s anything worth finding, the FBI has him in a nice, cozy interrogation room, and he’s not going anywhere. Let me know if you want me to drive.”

  Marsha had been itching to take over the wheel, second-guessing my tactics all afternoon. I flashed my sweetest Papa’s-got-it-handled smile in her direction.

  “I got this, precious,” I said. “Don’t worry your pretty little head.”

  Marsha smiled, too, giving me the finger. I remembered where that finger had been.

  If Marsha was CIA or NSA, or something else, no matter what, she could probably make people disappear if they got on her bad side. But Marsha’s wild-card factor turned me on. Her body emitted a signal that made me constantly check the car’s AC.

  “Déjà vu, Ten,” Marsha said. “For a second, you sounded exactly like my father.”

  “How’s that rebellion going?” I said.

  “It’s a work of art, thanks. Too bad he never lived to see it.” Her voice was quiet.

  I almost mentioned how my mother had died when I was a baby; it was rolling around in my mouth, but I stopped myself. Don’t start swapping sob stories. Like Marsha said, don’t make it personal. Marsha was my partner, and an exquisite adventure in bed, but Nandi was my priority. If I faced a choice between grabbing Nandi or helping Marsha, I had to choose Nandi—and Marsha probably would, too. Or, she might just save herself. I might find out later.

  I would be a fool to count on it.

  Simon exited Highway 134 to drive into Pasadena, where traffic was still in rush-hour mode. After inching along, he stopped at Guitar Center, where the parking lot was jammed with the usual crowd of musicians, parents indulging their kids, and middle-aged yuppies with expendable income after their kids had moved out. A music habit is expensive to feed.

  We decided to go in and blend. Even if he spotted us, we had a reason to be there.

  Inside, we were met by the cacophony of shoppers testing the guitars, drums, and keyboards. I saw Simon’s back as he walked into the keyboards section, not stopping to notice the guitars displayed at the front of the store. A half dozen Hendrix wannabes were strumming guitars they couldn’t afford.

  So far that day, everything about Simon had been consistent and bland. My heart perked up when Simon left the keyboard section and headed for the percussion alcove. It was a long shot, but he might meet Spider there before the show. My imagination was desperate.

  I almost charged after him, but Marsha held my hand to slow me down. We strolled. I hoped to see a black guy about five-seven, possibly with a shaved head.

  In percussion, drummers of every age sat on the drum thrones of drum sets both synthesized and real, the heavy bass beats bouncing against the walls. Shoppers in the room blended rock, hip-hop, and Latin styles, all of the rhythms crashing into one another.

  Simon was standing in front of the Latin section, admiring the sets of djembes, congas, and timbales. My junior high school music teacher’s voice came back to me as she tried to entice me to practice: The piano is a PERCUSSION instrument, remember. Simon picked up two shiny cowbells, one in each hand, and seemed to weigh them. After a time, he put one away and kept the other one to buy.

  As he walked to the cash register, I looked at my watch: 6:35. The day was gone. Nandi still wasn’t at home. I was in a Guitar Center watching a man buy a fucking cowbell.

  We should have gone to San Diego, I thought.

  Marsha shrugged, as if she’d heard my mind’s complaint.

  “Sometimes you just need more cowbell,” she said.

  Great. A comedian.

  Showtime for Clarence Love couldn’t come soon enough.

  TWENTY

  7:45 P.M.

  At least six men in the growing line at Club Skylight could have been Spider, every bald head catching my eye. I doubted that a band member would stand in line, but I studied them all while Marsha and I were parked at a dead meter down the street. Her mini binoculars gave me a close view that was nearly useless, since I’d never seen the man’s face.

  Spider was a phantom. During our day working our phones while we tailed Simon, I’d talked to a friend at the Musicians’ Guild who knew of two musicians with the nickname, but one was an eighty-year-old jazz player with a bad hip and the other was a female harpist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. So it all came down to Club Skylight.

  The club looked like a warehouse, sandwiched between a thrift shop and a boating supply store on a drab, nondescript street in Culver City, near the NPR station. Although most of the neighboring businesses were closed, the street-side parking was full. According to Google the club had been open for only six months, but I counted three dozen clubbers already lined up at the closed door. Most looked African, but college-age patrons of every ethnicity were waiting.

  Tuesdays were billed as Afrika Night, and it was a large draw in Los Angeles’s pan-African community. On my iPhone, Google found me a write-up in a Los Angeles Times article from March. MUSIC IS THE COMMON LANGUAGE, read the headline in an article touting how African immigrants citywide loved the eclectic but familiar musical mix, with an emphasis on music from South Africa, Senegal, and Nigeria.

  In the first photo of the band identified as Diaspora Beat, the shot had been taken in such an artsy way that the lights washed out the drummer’s face; two blurry hands on the drums, his face still a mystery. The internet story included several photos of patrons dancing, and there were two clear shots of Simon, but none of the drummer. In one photo, the man I thought was Spider had his face turned away from the camera.

  I just BET he doesn’t like having his photo taken, I thought.

  When the door opened to allow a well-dressed couple to walk inside, I saw the bouncer wave his mag
ic wand. Shit.

  “Metal detectors,” I said, yanking my Beretta out of my pants. I slipped it into the glove compartment. “So much for the guns.”

  “That’s damn inconvenient.” Marsha occupied herself in the mirror, letting her hair down and taking off her jacket to show off her low-cut blouse. Marsha fussed endlessly with her earrings as she watched the crowd through the windshield. Did she think we were on a date?

  I closed the glove compartment. “Let’s scope the place, take a look in the . . .”

  “. . . back,” she finished my sentence. “Then we knock on the door . . .”

  “. . . say we’ve got an appointment with Simon,” I said. “Good. I hate lines.”

  Marsha laughed suddenly, still playing with her earring. “Remember how you wouldn’t eat in the high school cafeteria? You said, ‘Lines are for suckers.’”

  I stared at Marsha, jolted. She had uncovered a memory I’d forgotten. Except for my father, no one in my circle had known me as long as she had. But it was a hell of a time for a high school reunion.

  “Same plan,” I said, trying to keep her focused. “We don’t let Spider out of our sight. We’ll follow him after the show.”

  “We also need his name so we can send Grandma up his ass, find out where he lives, who his friends are,” she said, and smiled. “This should be fun.”

  Fun wasn’t the word I was looking for.

  “Watch out for this guy, Marsha,” I said. “He’ll cut you open a dozen ways.”

  “Brains trump blades. Let’s see where he goes.”

  We pretended to head for the back of the line, but Marsha whipped out a pack of cigarettes, and we drifted toward the alley and six-foot fence along the side of the building. We lit up and chatted loudly about nothing, taking in the club’s perimeter. In the rear, I heard the bright peal of a trumpet inside, and my heart raced. The band was warming up.

  A young white woman dressed in a bartender’s white shirt was smoking on the steps of the club’s exit at the far rear, alongside a row of six parked cars. Marsha collected the tag numbers while we pretended to smoke. We leaned against an Expedition to hug and gaze deeply at each other for the bartender’s entertainment. It was the first time I’d felt Marsha’s body against mine without a hint of arousal.