New York Strip
Page 6
Al didn’t care. He had other things on his mind.
Time to pass him.
I turned on the headlight and rolled the throttle and crossed over into the opposite lane.
Big mistake.
Headlights appeared in front of me. An oncoming car. It honked.
I jerked the motorcycle back into my lane.
Headlights blazed past.
Whew. Close call.
Try it again?
Bet your ass.
I immediately crossed over into the opposite lane again.
No headlights appeared. No oncoming car. No horn.
So far so good.
As soon as I rolled the throttle the pickup swerved in front of me. It started weaving back and forth across the road. Like a boat adrift at sea.
It took me a minute to gauge the timing. But when I finally did I sped up and flashed past the pickup and steered back into my lane.
Then I looked ahead.
No Escalade in sight.
I had some catching up to do.
Let’s go, Rip. Hit it.
Shut off the headlight. Roll the throttle. Rocket forward. Lean into the curve. Be one with the machine.
Go go go.
Just ahead the road turned sharply to the right. When I accelerated out of the turn I watched the tachometer needle jump into the red.
With a surge of power I shot down a straightaway silvered by moonlight.
A quick look at the speedometer showed the needle moving past one hundred mph. Not the fastest I have ever gone on a motorcycle. But it seemed pretty damn fast on that dark road shaped like a corkscrew.
Riding is like flying. Surging forward like a jet. Swooping downward like a peregrine falcon. Shooting upward like a rocket.
At the end of the straightaway I finally spotted the Escalade. Just in time too. I saw it turn onto another road.
I followed.
They had followed me. They had lost me. They had tried to find me again.
Why?
Who were they? What were they up to? Had they taken Kelly?
I planned to find out.
Maybe they would lead me to the answers.
CHAPTER 20
AFTER A WHILE the Escalade pulled into the parking lot of a strip club. A place called The Boobie Trap.
A strip club.
Whoa.
Alarm bells went off in my head.
Kelly had worked at a strip club in Watertown. A place called Starbutts.
Was there a connection?
Or was it just a coincidence?
From across the street I watched the Escalade.
The driver’s door swung open. Dmitry got out. He still wore a black sweat suit.
The passenger door swung open. The tall man got out. He still wore a white sweat suit.
The back window on his side powered down. A hand came out. It waved the tall man over.
He went to the window and bent over.
I watched closely.
Who’s in the back seat?
The tall man nodded. Then straightened up.
The window powered back up.
Dmitry and the tall man entered the strip club.
I sat waiting.
More customers arrived. One after another. Men looking for something they weren’t getting at home. Some kind of exotic thrill. A fantasy to liven up their humdrum lives.
I wanted to enter the strip club. I wanted to see what the Russians were up to. I thought about changing my appearance but I had nothing with which to disguise myself.
So entering the place wasn’t an option.
I just had to sit and wait.
Apparently so did the man in the back seat of the Escalade.
I opened the saddlebag and reached in and ran my hand along the grocery bags. No moisture. The Lean Cuisines hadn’t thawed. The cold air had kept them frozen.
A compartment of the saddlebag contained my GPS. I opened the compartment and took out the GPS. I had no idea where I was and I wanted to find out.
The GPS told me I was ten miles south of Rising Falls. I saved the location as a favorite. I named it BOOBIE TRAP. Now I could find the place again if I needed to. You never know when you might want to blunder into a boobie trap.
I took out my phone and checked the time.
Past my dinnertime.
Not good.
I reached into a grocery bag and took out the mixed nuts. I tried to chew quietly. The walnuts made that impossible.
Five minutes passed before Dmitry and the tall man exited the strip club. The tall man carried a briefcase now. Both men wore contented smiles.
The back window of the Escalade powered down. A hand came out. The tall man passed the briefcase to the hand. The window powered back up.
The Escalade’s doors swung open. The two men got in. The doors slammed shut. The engine started. The headlights came on. The Escalade pulled out of the parking lot. It headed northwest. Toward Lake Ontario.
I followed.
CHAPTER 21
I NEEDED GAS.
My gas tank was almost empty. I should have filled it earlier. I scolded myself for not having done that.
Now I had a dilemma: Do I stop at a gas station and lose the Escalade? Or do I continue following it until I run out of gas?
Mile after mile the dilemma gnawed at me. The situation got worse and worse.
Then I got a break.
I smiled with relief when the Escalade pulled into the parking lot of a restaurant. A pizza joint called Basic Kneads Pizza. From across the street I watched it park in front of the restaurant.
Then I took out the GPS and searched for local gas stations. Three came up. Earl’s Pump-n-Munch was one of them. But not the closest one. An Exxon was the closest. Three miles away.
I figured I could make it there and back before the Russians finished eating dinner. No problem. But first I wanted to see what the man in the back seat looked like. So I waited.
And waited.
But nobody got out of the parked Escalade.
I couldn’t wait any longer. I had an opportunity to get some gas and I needed to take advantage of it.
Three minutes later I pulled into Exxon. I paid cash. I pumped the gas. Then I mounted my motorcycle and started the engine and peeled out of there.
I sped back toward the restaurant.
On the way there my phone rang.
I looked at the screen.
Kelly.
A screech of brakes.
I pulled over onto the shoulder and shut off the engine and stood straddling the motorcycle.
“Kelly?” I said into the phone.
No response.
“Kelly? You there?”
But the line went dead.
I immediately hit the speed dial.
Ring . . . Ring . . . Ring . . .
No answer.
Her voice mail picked up.
“Kelly? It’s Rip. What happened to you? Where’d you go? Phone me when you get this message. I’ve been trying to find you. I filed a missing-persons report. The Rising Falls Sheriff’s Office is going to start conducting a missing-persons search tomorrow. Phone me when you get this message.”
Kelly was still alive.
Either that or somebody had her phone.
I had no time to think about that now. I had to get back to the restaurant. I had to find out where the Russians were going. Maybe they would lead me to Kelly.
I started the engine and raced back toward the restaurant.
When I got there the Escalade was gone.
What happened? Why didn’t they go in and eat? Why’d they leave so quickly?
I motorcycled up and down the streets. Searching for the Escalade. Hoping to glimpse it.
Ten minutes later I gave up.
It was gone.
CHAPTER 22
WHEN I GOT back to my RV I put away the groceries and ate dinner.
My dinner consisted of a Lean Cuisine and a Greek yogurt. Not much of a Thanksgiv
ing dinner but at least my Lean Cuisine had some turkey and potatoes in it.
After dinner I sank into a chair and phoned Kelly’s father.
“Hello?”
“Blake? It’s Rip. How you doing?”
“Not bad for somebody who survived a Code Blue.”
A pause while I shut my eyes in relief.
“What happened to you?” I said and opened my eyes again.
“I cheated death. That bastard’s no match for me.”
“That’s the Blake I know.”
“Where’s Kelly? Find her yet?”
“I got a call from her phone.”
“A call from her phone. What’s that mean?”
“It means I don’t know whether it was Kelly on the line or somebody else.”
“Nobody spoke?”
“Nobody spoke. The line went dead. I phoned back the number and left a message on Kelly’s voice mail.”
He coughed. It sounded bad.
“You okay, Blake?”
“Yeah. Tell me more.”
“I’m going to phone Donna tomorrow. See if she can track the location of Kelly’s phone.”
Donna Stark. A former colleague at the U.S. Marshals Service.
“Good idea. What about the missing-persons search? How’s that going? Any leads yet? Potential suspects?”
“The search hasn’t started yet. The sheriff here told me their procedure’s to wait twenty-four hours before they conduct a missing-persons search.”
“How’s the sheriff seem? Competent?”
“I think he probably is. But he’s also a hard-ass.”
Blake coughed again.
“Kelly needs me, Rip. And I’m stuck here in a damn hospital. What the hell am I going to do?”
“Nothing you can do. Not in your condition.”
“My little girl’s missing.”
“I’m on it. Don’t worry. Tomorrow morning I plan to visit the sheriff. I’ll make sure the missing-persons search is his top priority. We’ll find Kelly. We’ll get her back. I promise you that.”
“Thanks, Rip.”
He could have blamed me for her disappearance. I had been responsible for delivering her safely to the University of Rochester. I had been her guardian.
Some guardian. I had lost her.
Blake could have blamed me. But he didn’t.
That didn’t stop me from blaming myself. The guilt ate me up.
“She’s my only child. The only thing I’m leaving behind.”
“That’s not exactly true.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve got something to tell you.”
“Then tell me.”
“I searched Kelly’s suitcase.”
“Okay.”
“But only because I thought I might find a clue in it. Something that would give me a lead on what happened to her.”
“Get to the point.”
“I found a document from her doctor.”
“And?”
“Kelly’s pregnant.”
“What?”
“You’re going to be a grandfather, Blake.”
He cried.
I didn’t know what to say. So I kept quiet.
After a while he stopped crying.
“I’m going to be a grandfather. Can you believe that?”
“Congratulations.”
“I won’t even be around to see the child.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes I do. And so do you.”
A pause.
“Any idea who the father is?” I said.
“She had a boyfriend. They broke up. He’s probably the father.”
“Wonder if he knows.”
“I doubt she told him. She didn’t even tell me.”
“Must be a good reason why.”
“Like what?”
I couldn’t think of any.
“We can ask her when we find her,” I said.
“What do you think happened to her?”
“I’ve got two theories.”
“What are they?”
First I told him about the Russians.
Then I told him about Kelly’s state of depression.
“Suicide? Not my girl. No chance of that.”
“Then my best guess is the Russians took her.”
“But you’ve got no evidence of that.”
“Not a shred.”
“So it could be something else.”
“Absolutely.”
“You’ve got to find her, Rip.”
“I plan to.”
CHAPTER 23
IN THE MORNING I ate my usual breakfast of oats and blueberries. And coffee. Of course.
Then I brushed my teeth. Coffee stains are bad enough. But when you add blueberries to the mix you are flirting with disaster.
Next I checked my email.
Nothing exciting.
Still no return email from Rachel McAdams.
I sighed and shut the laptop.
In the bedroom I put on my Adidas running gear.
Outside I ran alongside Lake Ontario. The snow had frozen into a thin layer of ice that crunched underfoot. I stepped carefully.
After my run I did some body-weight training. I always do the exercises in the same order. First I do push-ups. Then pull-ups. Then sit-ups. I do three sets of each.
I dropped to the ground and ripped through sixty push-ups.
A minute to rest.
Then I sprang back to my feet and jogged to a horizontal tree branch and reached up and took hold of it and knocked out thirty pull-ups.
Another minute to rest.
Then I dropped to the ground again and cranked out sixty sit-ups.
I rested for a minute before I started another set of push-ups. When I had finished I took another minute to rest and then started another set of pull-ups. Then after another minute of rest I started another set of sit-ups.
I had one final set of each exercise left to do. They weren’t easy. But I got them done.
In the shower I shaved neither my head nor my face. I shave my head every other day and my face twice a week. If I were still in the working world, I would have to shave more often. Fortunately I can now shave as frequently or infrequently as I please. That is one of the many luxuries of the world of retirement.
When I got out of the shower I toweled myself and went to the bedroom and dressed. Then I sat down at the dinette table and opened my laptop. I brought up Google and typed in the name Dmitry Petrov.
Thousands of hits appeared.
I scrolled down the list and skimmed the information. Nothing jumped out at me. So I narrowed the search by typing more keywords into the search box.
First I tried Rising Falls and Dmitry Petrov.
No hits.
Then New York and Dmitry Petrov.
Nothing useful.
Then I remembered something:
Oryol Financial Group owned the Escalade that Dmitry drove.
So I tried Oryol Financial Group and Dmitry Petrov.
No hits.
Damn.
I Googled Oryol Financial Group.
The company was located in New York City. It provided financial services that helped individuals reach their financial goals. It had been in business for more than two decades.
Financial advisors.
How were they connected to Dmitry?
My head spun.
Oryol. I had never heard of the word.
I Googled it.
Oryol is a city in Russia.
Interesting.
Oryol Financial Group. A company with Russian connections?
Maybe.
That would tie the company to Dmitry. But what did that mean? And how could it lead to Dmitry’s whereabouts?
I wanted to find his home address. That would be a good place to start looking for Kelly. But all I had was his name. No address. No phone number. No nothing.
Sheriff Cooper knew Dmitry’s home address. He had written down the
man’s information from his driver’s license. But would the sheriff share that information with me if I asked for it?
Not a chance.
No problem. I am a man with many resources. The U.S. Marshals Service’s Technical Operations Group could help me.
TOG provides the U.S. Marshals Service and other agencies with aerial surveillance and electronic surveillance and investigative intelligence. The group can find the location of almost any vehicle in America. License-plate readers make that possible.
License-plate readers are cameras mounted on bridges and utility poles and cop cars across America. The readers capture images of passing license plates. Then those license-plate numbers are recorded by a commercial database called the National Insurance Crime Bureau. That database is the source of information for TOG when it comes to locating license plates.
I picked up my phone and punched in the number for TOG.
“Technical Operations Group. How can I be of assistance?”
“I’d like to speak to Ian Sanders.”
“One moment.”
I waited.
“Ian Sanders.”
“Ian? It’s Rip.”
“Hey buddy.”
“Need a favor.”
“I’m fine. Thanks for asking.”
“Sorry. I’m in a bit of a hurry.”
“I bet. The retired life must be wearing you out.”
“You’ve got no idea.”
“True. I’m still slaving away here.”
“Seems like I’ve got less time now than when I was working.”
“I feel your pain. What can I do for you?”
I told him about the Escalade. I described it. I gave him the license-plate number.
“Give me a few hours,” he said. “I’ll get back to you.”
I punched in another number.
“U.S. Marshals Service New York/New Jersey Regional Fugitive Task Force. How may I direct your call?”
“Rip Lane phoning for Donna Stark.”
“One moment.”
I waited.
“Donna Stark.”
“Donna? It’s Rip.”
“Rip who?”
“Lane.”
“Just kidding. You’re the only Rip I know.”
“And you’re the only Donna I know.”
“Yeah. Right.”
“How’s Herb?”
“I don’t even want to go there.”
“That bad?”