Drunk Driving

by Zane Mitchell

  Artie sucked in a deep breath as his eyes darted around the table. “Well, for starters, the second we walked in the door, one of his buddies recognized Val.”

  I glanced over at Al. He had to be talking about Dalton. “You know who it was?”

  “I don’t recall the guy’s name, but Harvey introduced him as a club owner. That’s why it really didn’t surprise me that he recognized Val, since you’d met her at a club downtown.”

  “Yeah, that’s Kip Dalton,” I said assuredly. I grinned. “We were hoping he’d recognize her.”

  “Oh yeah, why’s that?” asked Artie.

  I smiled. “Let’s just say Dalton’s vividly aware of Val’s career choice.”

  “And considering the kind of operation they’ve got going on over there, the kid thought we needed to establish you as kind of a playboy,” added Al.

  “In other words, we thought you needed a little street cred, Artie.”

  Frankie quirked a brow. “So you decided to give him street cred by hanging a prostitute on his arm?”

  I nodded. “He was too squeaky-clean. We had to rough him up a little. They had to believe he’d be down for anything. Right?”

  “I suppose,” she relented.

  Satisfied that Al and I had made our case, I looked over at Artie. “So. Then what happened?”

  Artie blotted his face with his handkerchief. “Right from the get-go, they rolled out the red carpet for us, immediately plying us with food and booze. Lots and lots of booze. The second my glass was empty, they had someone out there bringing me another. I think Harvey wanted me loose.”

  I quirked a brow. “You don’t seem very loose.”

  Artie chuckled. “He probably wasn’t expecting someone of my stature. It takes a lot more than a few drinks to make me loose.” Artie smiled. “But I’m a good actor.”

  “Okay, so he plied you with liquor. What else happened?”

  “Well, like I said, they kept the drinks flowing. They introduced me around. I finally met Steve Dillon. Some guy with dreadlocks that owns a helicopter company. And that guy that knew Val. What was his name again? Dalton?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, Dalton.”

  “Yeah, so at one point after I’d had quite a lot of drinks, Harvey and Dalton pulled me aside and asked if I’d be interested in joining a gentlemen’s club.”

  Al looked surprised. “A gentlemen’s club?”

  Artie’s head dipped. “They called it PGC. Paradise Gentlemen’s Club. They said it was sort of like an island fraternity.”

  “Ahhh, PGC,” I said, looking at Al and nodding. “I found a pair of engraved cufflinks in Vito D’Angelo’s desk that said PGC, and in the picture Steve Dillon had in his office, we could tell a couple of the guys were wearing the same cufflinks.”

  With her hands clasped, Frankie leaned forward on the table. “So did they explain what this gentlemen’s club was all about?”

  “To some extent. He outlined the main perks, which were pretty impressive, to be honest.” Artie looked kind of sheepish admitting it. “Private helicopter use. Private beach parties. Major discounts on just about anything I want on the island. Harvey said almost anything I need to grow my business. The members do whatever they can to help the other members. He said that PGC business owners have the most lucrative and well-known businesses on the island.”

  I frowned. “What do you have to do to be a member?”

  Artie shrugged. “It wasn’t really clear. He said that members of PGC all scratch each other’s back. He said when the time came that they needed something from me, they’d let me know.”

  “He give you any more details?”

  Artie shook his head. “Not really. He said I’d learn more about the perks once I decided whether or not I was interested in joining PGC and then after I’d been inducted.”

  I tipped my head. “Inducted? What’s that about?”

  “There were a lot of holes they didn’t seem very interested in filling in. Instead of answers, they just kept insisting I relax and enjoy myself and not worry about the trivial details. They wanted me to have a great evening so I could see what kind of great parties they threw.”

  “So, did you give them any indication that you were interested in joining PGC?” asked Frankie.

  Artie nodded. “Of course. I mean, that was the whole reason I was there, wasn’t it? To infiltrate their circle. Find out everything I could.”

  I stared at Artie, wondering where this sudden bravery had come from. “You said you wanted to join?”

  Artie frowned. “Isn’t that what you wanted me to do?”

  “No, yeah, of course it is. I’m just a little surprised, to be honest. But you did good, Artie. You got them to trust you.” I patted him on the back.

  Al nodded. “The kid’s right. You did a great job, Artie. So was that it? Was that all that happened?”

  My eyes darted over to look at Frankie.

  Without moving her head, her eyes caught mine. She was thinking the same thing that I was. There was more to the story. We’d seen Artie go into that room.

  Artie sucked in a deep breath and held it for a second. Then he pushed it all out in one giant breath. “No. I wish that was all.” He glanced over at me, shaking his head. “This is the part I’d have liked to have had a little warning about.”

  I looked down at my hands. I felt bad for keeping him in the dark, but at Frankie’s insistence, I’d agreed that we had no other choice. Everything had to look real. “Yeah, sorry, Artie. We thought if we told you what might happen, then your reaction wouldn’t have been authentic. We were doing it to protect you.”

  Al looked between us. “What are you talking about?”

  I sighed. “They took Artie to the room that Giselle and Jordan were taken to, Al.”

  “And they brought a girl in to see him,” added Frankie.

  Artie wrinkled his nose. “It was so uncomfortable. Her name was Sonia. She couldn’t have been more than fifteen or sixteen.”

  “What did they say to you about it?” asked Frankie.

  Artie lifted a shoulder. “Harvey said that they keep massage girls on staff, and that anytime I wanted to come over for that little ‘perk,’ I was welcome to.” He shook his head. “And then he took me to the ‘massage room,’ as he called it. I was shocked when Sonia came in. I thought it was going to be like an adult woman, but it was this young sliver of a thing. I was shocked.”

  “Did they say anything to her?”

  “No. She seemed to know what she was supposed to do. Harvey said I could ask for anything. And by the way he said anything, it was obvious he wasn’t referring to my choice of aromatherapy oils.”

  Frankie sighed. “Yeah. That’s what I assumed. That’s how they’re running this whole thing. They catch prominent businessmen on camera doing inappropriate things to underage girls, and then they blackmail them into doing their bidding. Once you’re in the PGC, you’re not getting out. They’ve got hours upon hours of footage on their computer.”

  Wincing, Al shook his head. “You didn’t do anything you’d be ashamed of getting out, did you Artie?”

  Artie shuddered as if the memory of being back in that room haunted him. “I didn’t know what to do. I felt obliged to play along so they wouldn’t think anything was suspicious.”

  “Artie!” breathed Al.

  Artie’s hands splayed open on the table in front of him again. “What?!” he said with a shrug. “What was I supposed to do? I blame you three. You could have told me what to expect. I didn’t know what to do, so once Harvey left us alone, I lied and told the girl I had psoriasis and I refused to take my shirt off. In the end we spent the time talking about her needing a full-time job because she was living on her own after her mom died of a drug overdose. I felt bad for the girl, so I told her she could come work for me at the resort if she didn’t like what she was doing for Harvey.”

  Frankie reached across the table and patted Artie’s hands. “Thank you, Artie. You did a great job tonight. Y
ou found out what we needed to know, and you distracted all of them so we could get the evidence we needed to show Gibson.” Frankie pulled out the flash drive.

  “You found proof of what he’s doing over there?” asked Artie, his eyes wide with hope.

  Frankie nodded. “We did. And with your testimony and the testimony of the girls we saved, I think we’ve got more than enough to put Harvey Markovitz and all of his PGC pals away for a very long time.” She put her hands on the table and pushed herself up. “We better get going. We need to get this over to Sergeant Gibson before something happens to those girls.”

  “Yeah, I agree.” I nodded. “It’s time to shut this operation down. But before we do, don’t you think it would be a good idea if we went over that USB drive with a fine-tooth comb, so we could show Gibson a list of who’s all in PGC?”

  “I mean, yeah, that would be nice, but our backs are up against a wall here. Sonia and Becca are still over there. Who knows what those monsters are going to do to them if we don’t get a team in there immediately and get them out of there?”

  Al nodded. “I think you’re both right. Look. How about this? I think we need to divide and conquer. First of all, I need to go home. I can’t leave Evie all alone at the cottage. Just in case they’re able to figure out who drove the getaway vehicle—”

  “Al, they aren’t—”

  Al held up a hand. “You don’t know what they know, kid. Now listen. Before you go get the troops rounded up to save those girls, drop me off and I’ll have Big Eddie make a quick copy of the flash drive. I’ll have him and Ralph go over it and make a list for you. That way you’ve got the initial information you can give to the police. Once he’s compiled a list of the members of PGC, I’ll have him go over it a little more thoroughly and see what else we can find that might be of help. Alright? This way you don’t get slowed down.”

  I nodded. “Yeah. That’s sounds like a great idea, Al. What do you think, Frankie?”

  Frankie nodded. “Fine. That’ll work. I just want to get those other two girls out of there before something bad happens to them.”

  Al nodded. “We all do.” He stood up. “Now come on. We’ve got work to do.”

  35

  After having Big Eddie make us a copy of the USB drive to give to Sergeant Gibson, we dropped Al off at his place, and then Frankie and I headed over to the King’s Bay Marina to drop off her brothers’ van. I had a niggling feeling of regret about the bullet holes that Markovitz’s goons had strewn across the side of the vehicle. It didn’t compare, though, to the feeling I had about getting their boat blown to bits. At least this time, I felt like I had partial ownership of the van. So hopefully they couldn’t get too butt-hurt about the condition I’d returned it in.

  After parking the van, Frankie and I each got back into our personal vehicles and drove separately over to the police station, where Sergeant Gibson had agreed to meet with us. I was excited to share the information we had, not only so that we could bring down Harvey Markovitz’s whole loathsome operation and relieve the stress from my shoulders, but also because I looked forward to showing Sergeant Gibson once again that I wasn’t the menace to society that he liked to make me out to be.

  “You ready?” I asked Frankie when we were reunited and standing in the darkness on the sidewalk in front of the building.

  She raised her brows and let out a breath. “Ready as ever.”

  I took her hand and gave it a squeeze. “You know, if Gibson doesn’t give you the respect you deserve after making a bust like this, I think you really need to start looking at getting a different job.”

  She gave me a tight, sad little smile. “Law enforcement is all I know, Danny.”

  “Yeah, but you don’t deserve to be relegated to being Gibson’s secretary. You’re a great cop, Frankie. If he doesn’t see it after all this, he’s an idiot.”

  “Thanks, Danny. You’re a great cop too.”

  “Oh no.” I chuckled, swiping my hands in the air as we crossed the street. “No, no, no. I’m not a cop. And I gotta say, I like it so much better this way.”

  She laughed too. “To each their own.” She led us inside the building and straight to Gibson’s office. When Frankie had called him, he’d already been home in bed, but when she told him we had an emergency situation on our hands, he’d agreed to come in and meet us despite the late hour.

  “This had better be good, Cruz,” said Sergeant Gibson the second we walked in the door.

  Frankie nodded and cast a furtive glance towards me. “Oh, it is. It’s big, boss. Really, really big.” Taking a seat at the chair in front of his desk, she looked up at him again.

  “And what are you doing here, Officer Drunk?”

  What an asshole. I closed my eyes and silently prayed for patience. I opened them and thrust my hand towards him. “I’m fine, thanks, Gibby. How you doin’?”

  Frankie rubbed the back of her neck. “Danny—” she whisper-hissed.

  “What? I’m just greeting the sarge, Frankie.”

  Sergeant Gibson seethed in my direction. I could tell he didn’t like being called Gibby anymore than I liked being called Officer Drunk. “Can we get on with this?” he growled.

  “Yes, please.” Frankie sighed. “Sergeant Gibson, earlier this week, Drunk was approached by a young woman he works with, a teenager by the name of Giselle Marrero. She said she thought her best friend, Jordan Lambert had gone missing.”

  Sergeant Gibson frowned. “Jordan Lambert—she’s the girl the fisherman found along the Sandy Bay Beach?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t recall seeing a missing person’s report for Jordan Lambert prior to her body being discovered,” said Sergeant Gibson, frowning.

  I raised a hand to cut into the conversation. “That would be on me. I didn’t file a police report. Ms. Marrero asked me not to. She wanted help finding her friend, but she didn’t want to advance it to becoming a police matter. So, I went to Frankie—err, Officer Cruz, and asked her if she could just do a little digging on her end.”

  Frankie shot me a look that said I probably didn’t need to have shared that bit of information with her boss. “He just wanted to know if perhaps she’d been arrested. I was able to confirm that we had not arrested a Jordan Lambert.” She took a deep breath and continued. “But then, as you know, several days later, her body was discovered.”

  Sergeant Gibson’s head bobbed then.

  “Her death prompted us to keep searching for answers regarding the truth about her death.”

  “The coroner’s office ruled it an accidental drowning,” said Sergeant Gibson.

  Frankie looked surprised. “They did? I hadn’t heard that.”

  He nodded. “The report came back earlier today.”

  “Well, we have evidence to suggest otherwise,” I said. “We believe Jordan Lambert was murdered, and we think we know who might be responsible.”

  Sergeant Gibson’s eyes widened. “You have proof?”

  “We have proof of a sex trafficking ring that’s going on on the island,” I said. “We think the head of the operation had Jordan killed to keep her from talking.”

  He frowned and shook his head as if his ears were plugged and he’d had trouble hearing us. “I’m sorry. You have proof of what?!”

  Frankie and I spent the next twenty minutes explaining in detail everything that we knew about Harvey Markovitz and his operation, including those associated with him that were known participants in PGC. When we were done, Sergeant Gibson sat back in his chair and steepled his fingers over his stomach.

  “This is all quite a lot of information. How am I to believe such a far-fetched story? You say you have evidence, but you haven’t shown me a single strand of it.”

  Frankie pulled the USB drive from her pocket. “We have proof. When we were at the party tonight, I made a copy of Markovitz’s hard drive. He’s got notable island business owners on video engaging in sexual relations with minors.” She handed Sergeant Gibson the drive. “It’
s all right there. You can see for yourself.”

  Sergeant Gibson wasted no time in inserting the USB into his computer and opening the files. He double-clicked on the first file. Joseph Ayala. As Frankie and I had done, he watched the video until things became overtly sexual and then shut it off. “Are all of the videos on here the same?”

  Frankie swallowed hard. “I believe so. I didn’t open any more of the files. We were pressed for time and believed that Markovitz and his men might discover our presence in the surveillance room at any moment, so we simply made a copy of the hard drive and basically came straight here with it.”

  Sergeant Gibson nodded. “I see.”

  “Markovitz’s men did try and kill us, though,” I added. “When he finally discovered us, he did instruct his men to handle us.”

  “Handle you?”

  “Kill us. They took us outside to kill us. Thankfully we were able to get away with a couple of the girls who they’d been holding.”

  “And where are they? I’d like to speak with them and hear in their words what happened.”

  “They’re holed away somewhere safe,” said Frankie. “We didn’t want Markovitz’s men coming for them. Once we’ve got Markovitz and his PGC pals behind bars, the girls will speak with you. But the priority right now is getting the other two girls out of there before those people there can hurt them.”

  Sergeant Gibson sat up straight. “No, no. I completely agree with that.” He pressed a button on his phone and lifted the receiver. “Ames. Call Jones in. I want the two of you in my office in ten minutes. We’ve got a situation.” He hung up the phone. “I must say, I’m impressed with the work that you did on this, Cruz.” He nodded at Frankie.

  Frankie smiled at him. “Thank you, Sergeant.”

  “You’ve done a lot of good work lately. You’re really changing my mind about you.”

  His words seemed to make her sit up a little straighter in her seat. “Thank you very much. I appreciate that, sir.”

  He nodded and then looked at me. “And you’ve been a surprising asset too, Drunk. Maybe I was wrong about you.”