The Wicked Flee (A Marty Singer Mystery Book 5) Page 13

  His head stayed bent as we approached the counter. “I don’t handle transactions,” he said in a bored voice. “Talk directly to the girls, man.”

  Chuck reached across and plucked the magazine from the guy’s hands, who gave a halfhearted “Hey.” Chuck held the magazine at arm’s length, ripped it in half, in half again, then tossed the pieces onto the counter. “I’m here to talk to you, asshole.”

  Paul’s jaw dropped, then his hands moved lower behind the counter. In one smooth motion, I drew my SIG from its holster, pointed it at his nose, and said, “Reach for the sky.” There was a slight pause, then the guy’s hands floated past his ears until they were straight up and down like toothpicks.

  “We got your attention?” Chuck asked.

  “Dude, what do you want?” His eyes were enormous, watching the end of my gun like it was the gateway to another dimension.

  “We want to talk.”

  “About what?”

  For safety’s sake, I went around the counter and gently pushed the Employee of the Month off the stool and out of the way, then looked under the counter. Expecting a shotgun or a cheap street pistol, I was thrown when all I found were a few old Playboys and an aerosol can of what I thought was pepper spray. Frowning, I grabbed the can, then held it up for Chuck to see.

  “Fuck is that?” he asked.

  “Deodorant,” I said. “He was going to Right Guard us to death.”

  I put my gun away, then—on a whim—sprayed Paul on the arm. He yelped and kind of jumped in place, like I’d stuck him with a knitting needle. I looked at Chuck. “This is going to be the easiest interrogation in the history of law enforcement.”

  Paul’s eyes bugged out even farther. “You guys are cops? Oh, God. Oh, Jesus.”

  Chuck pulled out his badge and gave Paul a minute to study it. “Arlington PD. And, before you ask, yeah, I’m outside of my jurisdiction. And, no, that don’t matter. Do you know why?”

  Paul shook his head.

  “Because you’re an accessory to so many misdemeanors and felonies that there ain’t a judge in the world who would care if I came from Virginia or South Dakota or the Congo. But that’s not the important part.”

  “It’s not?”

  “No. The important thing is,” Chuck said, leaning in, “I’m not here to bust you.”

  “You’re not?”

  “No, Paul. All I want to know is if there’s one girl here. Just one. Tell me the truth and I’ll walk out of here.”

  “O-okay,” he stuttered. “Which girl?”

  My mouth went dry. We’d loosened up a little, had some fun. Now the rubber was hitting the road.

  “Her name is Lucy. Asian girl. Sixteen. Slim, long black hair, about five seven.” When Paul looked doubtful, Chuck said, “Not a regular. She would’ve been brought here earlier tonight, a couple of hours ago at the most.”

  Paul shook his head. “Sorry, man.”

  “Come on. You know every girl that works here, just like that?”

  “No, but there’s never been an Asian. All the girls are just regular, you know, white trash from Baltimore and Bowie. Nothing, uh, special.”

  Chuck got an ugly look on his face and, almost faster than I could follow, he came halfway across the counter and slapped Paul across the side of the head, sending his glasses flying.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I said, holding Paul upright with one hand and shoving Chuck away with the other. “Jesus, Chuck. Cool it. We need him to talk.”

  Paul held the side of his face, where a livid red mark showed where Chuck had connected. “Holy crap,” he said once, then kept whispering it. Spit dribbled out of one side of his mouth. “What is wrong with you, man? I told you, we don’t have any Asian chicks here. We just don’t.”

  “You got ten seconds to tell me who brings the girls here,” Chuck said. “I want a name, the car he drives, what time he shows or I swear to God I will shoot you in the head.”

  By the look on Chuck’s face, this might not be an act. I was wondering exactly what I was going to do if he decided to make good on the threat when the decision was taken out of my hands. The little bell on the door tinkled and a petite black girl came through the door, dressed in jeans and a massive winter coat.

  But what really grabbed my attention was the chunky Glock 22 she was pointing at us.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  “Is this thing coming apart?”

  “No,” Eddie said forcefully, struggling for control. He closed his eyes briefly and softened his voice. “No. Everything is on track.”

  “You took care of your little problem?”

  “Yes. We’re in good shape. The detour took less time than I thought.” There was a long pause on the other end and Eddie wondered if Torbett was going to back out. His throat constricted at the thought. “Look, this isn’t easy. There are a lot of moving parts and making it work on the fly is going to mean there’ll be a couple of bumps along the way. But that’s all they are, bumps. You hired me to do the job and it will get done. It’s getting done.”

  “I can’t afford any mistakes, Eddie. If you draw attention to yourself and I’m caught anywhere near you, it’ll ruin me.”

  “You won’t suffer any damage on this, I swear,” Eddie said, struggling to project confidence and not desperation. “Believe me, I’ve got my own reasons for making sure the deal goes off without a hitch.”

  Another pause. Then, “Convince me.”

  Eddie closed his eyes again. You couldn’t snow people all the time. Sometimes the best, most reliable method to get someone on your side was to surprise them with the truth. Or half of it. “I’ve got something that depends on this deal. Something . . . big in my life. Not another score, something personal. And if I don’t get your money, that something is going away. And I don’t know if I can live with that.”

  Silence.

  Eddie swallowed. “That’s why I’m going to make sure I get this girl to you. This isn’t just a deal to me. It’s everything.”

  The lights of the highway flew by as the silence stretched on. The Mustang gurgled and clacked beneath him as Eddie strained to hear. He wondered if he’d said too much, if his confession could be used against him or had turned Torbett off somehow. What the man on the other end of the line said next would mark his future. Miles seemed to tick away as he waited for an answer.

  “All right.”

  Eddie let out a breath and his shoulders slumped in relief. “Then we’re good? Stick to the plan?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay,” Eddie said, eager to be off the phone now. “Anything else?”

  Torbett hesitated, making a weird sighing noise Eddie had heard only once before, when he’d delivered the last girl and, as brusque and businesslike as he’d been only a moment ago, he was just as suddenly stuttering and unsure. “Could you . . . could you put her on the phone? Just for a minute.”

  Eddie glanced over at the empty seat. “Ah, sorry. She’s been out cold for the last hour. I had to dope her to keep her from screaming her head off.”

  “You didn’t hurt her, did you?” Torbett asked, his voice veering from dreamy to sharp. “You can forget it if she’s been bruised or manhandled.”

  “That’s why I drugged her.”

  “I don’t want a junkie, either.”

  Eddie took a deep breath. “They were just roofies. Her body will flush them in about six hours. And the guy I got her from told me she’s completely straight otherwise. Doesn’t drink, doesn’t smoke, doesn’t do drugs. Clean as a whistle.”

  Torbett sighed. Another long pause. Another sigh. Eddie’s panic bobbed to the surface again. Torbett’s little noises sounded like the preamble to No all over again. “Look, I—”

  “Do you want a picture?” Eddie said, interrupting. “She’s right here.”

  Silence. Then, “Yes.”

&n
bsp; “Hold on.” Eddie fumbled with his phone as he flew along the road, raking through his stored pictures without slamming the car into a telephone pole. With a few taps, he sent the picture of Lucy from earlier in the night to Torbett’s cell number. “On its way.”

  He squeezed the phone until a throaty sigh made its way through from the other end. “She’s beautiful.”

  “She is,” Eddie said. “And she’ll be yours by the end of the night.”

  Yet another pause. This was it. Eddie’s heart drummed in his chest as he waited for the answer.

  “I’ll see you there,” Torbett said and hung up.

  Eddie ended the call, his shoulders slumping in relief, while sweat prickled his scalp and beaded his forehead. His fish had jumped back on the hook, but barely. The thought of losing his bankroll made Eddie nauseous. Everything depended on having a buyer and not just because he needed the money—with Gerry on his rap sheet now, he couldn’t afford to have the guy with the money back out of the deal. There was no going back and, without cash, no going forward, either.

  He rolled the windows down, hoping the blast of frozen air would quell his nerves, which were thrumming like an electric current. He scrubbed his face, willing himself to focus. Until the call from Torbett, he’d been able to tuck away thoughts of Gerry into a dim corner of his mind to deal with later. But now all he could see was the scarlet spray against the white walls of the refrigerator.

  He’d never killed anyone before. Beat the shit out of a couple girls, gotten into some terrific fights, sure. He’d seen violence and had been on the receiving end a few times. Like the time he’d been knifed and hit the guy with a cue stick so hard he thought, yeah, maybe he’d killed him. He heard later that the sucker had recovered. Couldn’t count to twenty, but he was alive.

  This thing with Gerry was different. So different. He hadn’t killed him in a bar fight while he was crazy drunk or screaming mad. He’d simply . . . killed him. Maybe worse, he’d acted like he was helping him, had promised to make things right. He’d made a conscious, cold-blooded decision to end the guy’s life, just in case.

  In case the cop came back around. In case Gerry talked. In case a loose end tied him to Gerry. He’d shot someone twice in the head as a precaution.

  The sweat was frozen on his head and his teeth began to chatter, but Eddie kept the windows down, driving faster. He was going to face this. How did it feel to end someone on the off chance something might go wrong? What did it mean to go down this path, no matter how good his reasons were?

  He examined his thoughts and feelings, attempting to analyze himself dispassionately. Long minutes passed, then he gave up and rolled up the windows to concentrate on the road, unsure if it should scare him that he didn’t feel guilty . . . or that he didn’t feel anything at all.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  “Hands on the back of your head. Now.”

  The look on Chuck’s face said, You’ve got to be kidding, but he put his hands parallel to his ears anyway. I wove my fingers together and cupped the back of my head, watching the girl. At first I thought that she was, I don’t know, in high school—she didn’t look more than eighteen—but she had us covered like a pro, holding a Weaver stance like she’d been born to it.

  To my right, and for the second time tonight, Paul raised his hands like he was trying to tickle the ceiling. Out of the side of my mouth, I said, “This has been one lousy shift for you.”

  “Sir, no talking,” the girl barked. “Come around the counter. One at a time.”

  I did what she said. Paul followed. I could smell his nervous sweat. The foyer was now uncomfortably crowded with three adult men and a girl armed with a howitzer and a decidedly unfriendly expression on her face. Chuck, who’d had his back turned to the door, still didn’t know who or what was behind him. For that matter, neither did I, but I could take an educated guess.

  “She’s on our team,” I said when Chuck caught my eye. “Only a cop calls someone ‘sir’ in a situation like this.”

  Keeping his hands in the air, Chuck tilted his head back and said to the ceiling, “Officer, I’m Detective Chuck Rhee, Arlington PD Gangs Unit. My lieutenant’s name is John Creusfeld. My colleague here is Marty Singer, formerly of DC Homicide.”

  “It’s Trooper, not Officer,” she said. “Who’s your other friend?”

  “This is Paul,” I said. “And he chose the wrong occupation after high school.”

  “Sir, he can answer for himself,” the girl said.

  “I’m Paul, the night manager,” he said. “And he’s right. I wish I was stocking shelves right now.”

  There was a pause. “I really am a cop,” Chuck said. “You can call my lieutenant if you want.”

  “Badge?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where? Tell me, don’t show me.”

  “Back left pants pocket,” Chuck said.

  “Take it out with your right hand,” she said. “Not your left.”

  Neat trick, I thought, as I watched Chuck, as flexible and lanky as anyone I knew, contort his body to comply. If he had anything dangerous in his back pocket, she’d see it coming from a mile away. He finally fished the badge holder out of his pocket.

  “Show me. Next to your head,” she instructed. He did so and the cover fell open, revealing the gold-and-blue shield of Arlington County. “Hand it back.”

  Chuck extended his arm behind him as far as he could and she took the badge from him. She held it eye-high so she could watch us as she studied it. I watched as her expression changed three or four times, making it clear that we were one of the last things she’d expected to find here. She’d have to work on her game face if she didn’t want every scumbag she nabbed reading her like a book.

  “Are you armed?” she asked.

  “I have my service weapon,” Chuck said. “Marty’s carrying.”

  “Licensed,” I said before she shot me.

  Her eyes flicked over to Paul. “What about you?”

  He shook his head, but I said, “Right Guard.”

  “What?”

  “They were all out of Secret,” I said. “Strong enough for a man, though.”

  Her face tightened. We are not amused. I shrugged. It probably wasn’t the best time for humor, but Chuck was ready to blow a gasket if the cadet here didn’t let us get back to finding Lucy.

  But she seemed just as ready to get to the point. She eased out of her stance, although the gun stayed ready at her side. “Does Arlington PD always beat their interrogation subjects, Detective?”

  “I’m not that kind of cop,” Chuck said. “But I needed intel and I can’t wait.”

  “Is that going to help explain what you’re doing in Maryland?”

  “Do you mind if we put our hands down now?” I asked. It was embarrassing, but my shoulders actually ached.

  “Go ahead,” she said. “Keep them in sight.”

  Chuck lowered his hands with care and slowly turned in place. The girl handed him his badge back. “You mind telling us who you are?”

  “Sarah Haynesworth,” she said, pulling her own badge and holding it so we could see. “Maryland State Police.”

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  “You first,” she said, then surprised me with a smile. “I’m the arresting officer, after all.”

  Chuck filled her in on our night, from the first stirring of fear he’d had when Lucy hadn’t called for their dinner date to the point just before she’d walked in on us. Halfway through the explanation, she holstered her gun and leaned against the wall.

  “So,” Chuck finished, “this fleabag motel is all we got. One thread, leading back to the son of a bitch who took my sister.”

  I cleared my throat. “Now maybe you can understand why Chuck was using, uh, advanced interrogation techniques.”

  “That’s our story,” Chuck
said. “And, no offense, but we need to get back to it.”

  “What’s your plan?” Sarah asked.

  “I need to find the pimp who’s running the girls here. Find him and either he’ll still have her or know where she’s at. This fool,” Chuck said, pointing to Paul with his chin, “probably don’t know much, but he’s got to know who’s in charge of the girls.”

  “Who will be the guy your sister’s boyfriend told you about?”

  “Yeah,” Chuck said, then turned to Paul. “How about it, champ? You know who runs the show?”

  Paul shook his head timidly. “I don’t, man. I just sit at the desk . . .”

  Chuck swore and Paul cringed, as if expecting to get hit again. I kept my face blank, but my heart sank. If this was a dead end—or Tuck had simply lied—then this was it. The best we could do is file a missing persons report, wait for the Amber Alert, and hope someone at a rest stop or gas station spotted Lucy.

  “Do you know Gerry?” Sarah asked. “Big, sloppy guy with a mustache and gold chain?”

  “Gerry?” Paul said, surprised. “Yeah, he’s the one who drops the girls off.”

  “Who’s Gerry?” Chuck and I asked at the same time.

  “I didn’t get to tell you what I’m here for,” Sarah said.

  “Now’s the perfect time,” I said.

  “I’ve been tracing a network of hookers and low-level pimps stretching west of Baltimore and north of DC. They’re all tiny operations, sometimes as few as one guy and two girls. But the pimps have never done the recruiting. They’re more like . . . managers.”

  “That’s this guy Gerry?” Chuck asked.

  She nodded. “I got his ID yesterday from a john who’d . . . used one of his girls. She’d overdosed while she was with him. When he thought we were going to pin a murder rap on him, he coughed up Gerry’s name. I traced him to his house and paid him a visit, which I think shook him, but I didn’t have anything else, so I had to go.”