Drunk Driving

by Zane Mitchell

  31

  The staff entrance of Harvey Markovitz’s mansion buzzed louder than a refrigerator with a busted compressor. People in all sorts of uniforms raced around, some with trays of empty champagne flutes and others with newly restocked hors d’oeuvre trays. Chefs hollered orders while others cooked or washed dishes. So when Frankie and I walked in carrying our boxes of crab, we blended in easily.

  We’d made it about a dozen steps towards what appeared to be the exit when someone in a chef’s cap spotted us and hollered, “You over there, let’s get that refrigerated, ASAP.”

  I glanced sideways at Frankie.

  She nodded at the man. “Just lookin’ for the cooler, boss.”

  He cocked his head backwards. “Over there. Once you get that done, hurry back. The buffet needs restocking already.”

  “Sure thing, boss,” she said, giving him a nod.

  The two of us did as instructed. We delivered the boxes of crab meat to the cooler and then returned and got new orders. Chef Frederick, as his name tag read, handed each of us a chafing dish. Frankie’s was full of steamed shrimp and mine was a pasta dish that smelled of heaven, but I felt myself holding my breath as I followed Frankie out to the party floor.

  Between Ayala, Dalton, Steve Dillon, and Vito, I worried that showing my face could jeopardize our mission, and then not only would our sting be over, but I might be arrested for trespassing, and Frankie would likely be out of a job. But, following her confident lead, I kept my head down and held my stainless-steel chafing dish up high as we cut through the crowd of partygoers. As soon as we replaced the nearly emptied trays of food with the full ones and began to walk away with the empty ones, a woman in a matching maroon apron clicked her tongue at us.

  “Didn’t they train you how to do this?” she hissed at us.

  Frankie looked down at the tray of food she carried. “Excuse me?”

  “Look at how much food you’re wasting. You are supposed to combine the old food with the new food.”

  Several guests at a nearby table looked over their shoulders at us, getting chewed out like small children. Ignoring her speech, I lifted my chin slightly to get a view of the room for the first time and noticed Val and Artie circulating around the room. Val clung to Artie’s arm, but still managed to put on quite the show, grinning and laughing, enjoying every man’s attention over her. For his part, Artie didn’t seem to mind having such a well-admired date. In fact, his chest seemed more puffed out than I’d ever seen him before.

  Good for you, Artie, I thought as the woman named Brenda in the maroon apron continued to rail on Frankie and me.

  “Now, do it properly,” she finally commanded.

  Frankie sighed. “Come on.”

  We went back to the table and I began to scoop the rest of the pasta out of my chafing dish and into the new pan when I heard a familiar voice in line next to me.

  “So then I told the guy, not if I have anything to do about it!”

  Raucous laughter filled the air around me. Keeping my chin to my chest, I allowed only my eyes to glance up. It was Vito, chatting with Kip Dalton. My eyes widened. I was literally two steps away from Vito and across the buffet table from Kip. I shot a glance further down the buffet line and was surprised that I recognized another face. It was Monica Arndt, the realtor Al and I had met with earlier in the week. An older man was chatting with someone next to him, and he had his arm draped around her shoulder. Keeping my head down, I quickly unloaded the rest of my tray and raced back to the kitchen with Frankie hot on my heels.

  Brenda nodded as we passed her by. “Better. Now fill up the sides. We’re running low.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I whispered, just anxious to get out of there.

  Frankie and I rushed back to the kitchen, unloaded our empty trays, and then, careful not to let Ms. Snippy Pants see us, took a left instead of a right to head back towards the party floor. Out there, we took the first hallway we saw and began our exploration, poking our head into each and every room we encountered. It didn’t take long before we realized what an enormous mansion it was and how difficult it would be to search through every room without getting caught.

  I whispered at Frankie, “Giselle told me that they came in off the garage and went down a hallway that had a bunch of girls’ pictures. I think we need to find that hallway first and make sure we’re even in the right house to begin with.”

  Frankie stopped walking and looked around. “How are we supposed to find the garage?”

  “I don’t know, but if I had to guess, it’s not going to be right by the service entrance. I bet it’s on the other side of the house.”

  Frankie frowned. “Well, then, why did we come this way?”

  “Because Sergeant Snippy Pants was going to make a scene if we came back without our trays.”

  “Ugh,” groaned Frankie. “Okay. We’ll have to sneak back across the party to the other wing of the house.”

  “Be careful, because I saw Vito D’Angelo out there earlier. He knows what I look like. We sorta had a run-in not that long ago.”

  I was thankful when Frankie didn’t make me explain. “Okay. Come on.”

  We walked back through the hallway and peered into the party. It was in full swing now with people laughing and drinking. I noticed Artie talking to a balding blond man with wire-rimmed glasses and a relaxed grey suit.

  “Hey, Frankie, I think that’s our guy,” I hissed. I could only see a side profile of the man, but I felt confident that it was the same guy in the pictures we’d seen.

  “I wonder what he and Artie are talking about,” she whispered back.

  “I don’t know. We’ll find out when we get back to the resort. For now, how are we supposed to get across the room without the boss or Vito seeing us?”

  Frankie picked up a huge feathered centerpiece off a side table and held it front of her face. “Follow me.”

  The two of us skimmed across the room, darting between guests and the waitstaff. When we were finally on the other side of the massive room, Frankie put the plant back down on another table, and we slipped into the hallway on that side.

  “Nice going,” I said, shooting her a smile.

  She grinned back at me, flexing her dimples. “Thanks. Now come on—before we get busted.”

  We set about exploring that wing of the house, looking for a hallway that led to an oversized garage that could fit a limousine, when we finally discovered exactly what we were looking for. The hallways were long, like a hotel’s, and the music from downstairs blared, making it easier to feel inconspicuous.

  Finally, we turned a corner and my breath caught in the back of my throat when I saw the pictures on the wall. “Frankie. This is it! These are the same kinds of pictures that Al and I saw at Club Cobalt. We’re in the right place! This was where Jordan Lambert and Giselle were taken.”

  “Now we just have to find some hard evidence that we can take to Gibson,” said Frankie.

  “There’s gotta be an underage girl around here or something,” I said, opening doors and peeking inside.

  “You wouldn’t think he’s got them down here during the party. That’s too risky. Someone might see what’s going on.”

  I shook my head. “Giselle said they came in off the garage and went into a room where they changed clothes, and then they were led to another nearby room that had a massage table in it, and that’s where it happened. Those rooms have to be around here somewhere.”

  We opened several doors in the hallway but found nothing like Giselle had described. Finally, we came to a locked one. I wiggled the handle and then knocked, wondering if there was someone in there. I waited a few long moments with my ear pressed to the door. Finally, I stepped back. “No one’s in there.” I patted the top of my head. “Ugh, and of all times, I didn’t bring my hat,” I whispered to Frankie.

  “You use a hat to open locked doors?”

  I rolled my eyes. “You’re funny. I’ve got bobby pins in the hat band.”

  Franki
e reached around and pulled some pins out of her hair. “Funny, I keep my bobby pins in my hair, not in my hat.” She handed them to me.

  I beamed at her. “I could just kiss you.”

  “Oh, come on, Danny. Save something for the honeymoon.”

  With the pins between my teeth, I shook my head. “Don’t tempt me, Frankie. I mean it.” I bit down on the pins, bending them as Nico had taught me, and then squatted down and got right to work picking the lock while Frankie kept watch. It didn’t take long for the lock to spring. Either the locks were getting easier, or I was getting better. I had to assume it was the latter.

  “You ready?” she whispered.

  Nodding, I held my breath. My heart raced. I pushed open the door to discover the room was empty, with the exception of a few chairs and a massage table. “Hah!” I said, pointing at the limited furniture. “Just as Giselle said it would be!”

  Frankie frowned.

  “Why are you frowning? This is exactly what we needed to see!”

  “Danny, you said it yourself. We already knew this was where all the girls were taken. I mean, yeah, the extra proof is nice to have. But this still gives us nothing to go to Gibson with. We need solid evidence. Proof to hand to him.”

  I tossed my hands up. “Okay, well, we’re in the right house to find proof. I say we keep looking. We’ll find something. Come on.”

  We poked our heads into another couple of rooms on the first floor, discovering nothing, before we came to a set of stairs. Making sure that the coast was clear, we crept up them and then slid against the wall at the top of the stairs. I put a hand on the first doorknob I saw and turned it.

  “It’s locked,” I whispered to Frankie before immediately squatting once again to spring it. “Come on.”

  We opened the door and slid inside, shutting out the blaring sound of the party’s music behind us. Monitors hung on the wall with a single desk below them. A keyboard and a mouse sat on the desk. I gave the mouse a wiggle, and all the monitors fired up, showing screens from all around the house. It was obvious—Harvey had cameras everywhere in his house.

  Frankie sucked in her breath. “I should’ve known. He’s got us on video, Danny.”

  “We’ll edit out parts of the video,” I said with a nod. Then I pointed to one of the rooms on the monitor. “Frankie, look. It’s the massage room downstairs.”

  Frankie nodded. “Yup.” She reached back and grabbed my arm then. “Omigosh, Danny, the door’s opening! Look, someone’s going in there.”

  32

  The door swung open, and Artie Balladares of all people was led inside. Trailing him were Harvey Markovitz and Kip Dalton. Val was nowhere to be seen.

  “Artie!” I breathed, my eyes springing open wide. “Fuck, this can’t be good.” With my hand on my gun, which was fitted in my appendix holster, I started to move towards the door, but Frankie held my arm.

  “You asked him to get the intel. Maybe that’s what he’s doing. Give him a minute.”

  Though she was right, I couldn’t help but worry about Artie. I stared at the screen hard, ready to make a move if anything went awry.

  As I kept a close watch on Artie, Frankie scanned the rest of the monitors. She pointed at one of them. “Danny, look. Look at this one.”

  My eyes followed her finger to see a bedroom with two girls of maybe fifteen or sixteen lying on a pair of twin beds, talking. They were both wearing almost nothing, just a nightie of some sort. “Two of his victims,” she said, shaking her head.

  “Fucking scumbags!” I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. My eyes darted back and forth between screens, watching Artie and then the girls. “Frankie, we gotta get them out of here.”

  “First we need to see if there are any more.” She pressed a key, and the screen with the two girls disappeared and another set of bedrooms popped up. Several of them were empty, but two of them had girls in them. She was just about to switch to another set of cameras when I noticed the door opening at the bottom of the screen.

  “Wait! Look!”

  A man entered the room. He said something to the girl and she looked up at him. Without volume, we couldn’t tell what they were talking about, but he nodded towards the door, and the girl got up and followed him out into the hallway.

  “I’ve got a really bad feeling about that,” I said, staring at Artie’s room on the screen.

  It didn’t take long before, sure enough, Artie’s room opened and the girl was deposited inside. Harvey and Kip left the room.

  I rubbed the pads of my fingers on my forehead. “Oh fuck.”

  Frankie sighed. “This is bad.”

  I put my eyes back on the camera again. “Artie isn’t going to do anything inappropriate, but he’s not going to be happy to have been put in that position. We gotta get him out of there.”

  “Artie’s not an idiot, Danny. He can handle himself. Right now we need to erase ourselves from the security footage, and then we need to see what else is on this computer. I have a feeling this is the proof we need to show Gibson about the operation that’s going on over here.” She clicked through to the computer’s hard drive. Within seconds, we were both staring at a treasure trove of evidence. They were hundreds of saved video recordings. Several of the video files were named with the last names of business owners, followed by dates. Ayala. James. Dillon. On and on the files went. There were names on the list that I’d never heard of before.

  “Open one,” I said. Though I was fairly confident I knew what would be on the video, I had to know that it was what I thought it was.

  Frankie double-clicked the first file in the list. Ayala. It began just as it had gone with Artie. Joseph Ayala was led into the massage room to a waiting girl. When the girl began to undress completely, I couldn’t watch any longer. Just knowing what was happening made my stomach turn. “Shut it off, Frankie.”

  And just like that, we’d found what we’d come for. All the proof we needed to take to Gibson.

  “Holy shit,” I breathed. I couldn’t help but feel disgusted.

  Frankie’s head shook slowly as she scrolled through the list of files. “Look at this, Danny. File after file of Paradise businessmen. This is huge. It’s sickening.”

  I nodded. “And some of them have multiple recordings.”

  She stood up straight and stuck her hand in her pocket, pulling out a thumb drive. She stuck it in the computer’s USB port.

  I stared at her. “You brought a flash drive with you?”

  As she clicked through on the computer system, she nodded. “You should know me by now. I always come prepared. What kind of evidence did you think we’d find? Used condoms?”

  I made a face. “Eww. No. I guess I… I wasn’t really thinking about it.”

  Pressing another key, she stood upright. “You gotta always be two steps ahead of the bad guy, Danny. Especially when you’re the underdogs, like we are.” She pointed at the computer. “I’m copying the hard drive. Then I’ll delete any traces of us being here.”

  “Frankie, that’s gonna take forever. Harvey and Kip—those guys could come in here any second.”

  She shrugged. “We don’t have a choice. We need the evidence.”

  “But we have to get those girls out too.”

  “Then you go get them out. I’ll wait until these files finish downloading.”

  I shook my head. “No way, Frankie. I’m not leaving you alone in here. If Harvey comes in here, things could get bad for you.”

  Frankie patted the gun she wore behind her apron. “Don’t worry about me. I can handle myself with Harvey. You just find the girls.”

  I shook my head staunchly. “I’m serious. I’m not going anywhere without you.”

  We both looked at the screen. The files were downloading, but there was still a ways to go. “I’ll be okay. By the time you find the girls and get them out of their rooms, the files will be done. Now go. We don’t have much time.” She went to the door and held it open for me. “Hurry.”

  Feel
ing conflicted, I stepped out into the hallway, and the door promptly shut behind me. I could only hope I’d find the girls in the video footage. With the music still blaring downstairs, I raced down the hallway, opening every door I came into contact with and sticking my head inside the rooms. I’d gone about half of the length of the hallway when I found my first locked room. I gave a little knock on it. When no one answered, I squatted, preparing to pick the lock. But it opened before I could even get the pins out of my pocket. A young girl with blond hair wearing a white teddy opened the door. My eyes widened.

  She stared back at me, confusion shining in her blue eyes. “Who are you?”

  “I’m here to help you,” I whispered.

  “Help me? Help me do what? Are you a cop?”

  “Well, I’m like a security officer.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “You mean like a mall cop?”

  “No, not like a mall cop.”

  A girl’s voice behind her hollered, “Who is it, Becca?”

  “I don’t know,” she said over her shoulder. “Some mall cop.”

  “I told you, I’m not a mall cop.”

  The second girl came to the door, wearing a similarly revealing outfit. She looked to be almost the same age but had a darker skin tone and brown hair. “Who are you?”

  “Look, I don’t have time for a lot of questions. My name is Danny, and I’m here to get you out of here. Are you being held here against your will?”

  The blond girl looked unimpressed. She shrugged. “Not really. They pay really well.”

  “Speak for yourself,” said the darker-haired girl, pushing her out of the way. “I told them I wanted to go back to my family and they told me that I couldn’t go yet. Not until I’d proven my loyalty to them.”

  “Look, I can get you out of here. I have a vehicle out back by the kitchen. Come with me?”

  The girl looked down at her dress. “I can’t go dressed like this,” she said. “Harvey’s having a party tonight.”

  “Fine. You have one minute to put something else on while I go look for the rest of the girls. Now go!” She disappeared back inside the room. I looked at the blond. “How many of you are there?”