by Carol Buhler
Bonami snorted a laugh and tipped his head at Byron who sat behind the desk in a neat white shirt and tie. “Don’t give me that guff. I know you have good clothes. You’re just too lazy to put them on and visit!”
“Too busy, more like,” Byron said with a grimace. “Never thought I’d think I wanted a break. Truthfully, we’ve been running our arses off this last year.”
“No more than me, I don’t think.” Bonami pulled the client’s chair away from Byron’s desk and sank into it with a sigh. “Not here for a pleasant call. One of my friends needs you boys and your skills.”
“On the house?” Laird asked as he took the chair beside Bonami.
“No, no. He can pay. He’d rather pay you than the blackmailer after him, even though that one’s not after money.”
“What’s the story?” Byron swiveled his chair and started up the computer. As Bonami explained the situation, Laird asked questions and made suggestions. Byron recorded.
“Theodore Markus is running for City Council, as you probably know,” Bonami started; the boys raised their eyebrows at the name. “Some scag sent him pictures, supposedly of him and a hooker in a sleazy hotel on the south side, surrounded by liquor and drug paraphernalia. I’ve seen the shots—it looks like him, but with the photo tech they have today, we think they were created rather than taken. He swears he’s never seen the woman, nor been in that hotel. But, how do you prove a negative?”
“Are there dates?” Byron asked.
“Not, right, Bon?” Laird said.
“You’re right. No dates. He can’t supply an alibi. Whatever he says, they’ll claim something different.”
“These haven’t become public?”
“They won’t, right away. Maybe never. Whoever is behind this wants him to win the council seat. Then, they want him to vote as they say, when they say. So, immediate exposure would be useless. They want to hold these pictures over his head.”
“So this isn’t a rush?”
Bonami shook his head. “Unless Theo does something incredibly stupid, the photos won’t come to light before the election, but he’s a nervous wreck. I can’t get him to understand that he just has to ignore them until he actually wins the election, and before then, we’ll have proven them fake.”
“Does his wife know?” Laird asked. “Is she going to cause trouble?”
“At this point, no she doesn’t. I’ve counseled him to tell her and show her the pictures so she isn’t shocked if they come out. She could provide effective backup. But he’s adamant. He says she has a bad heart and he’s afraid it will kill her.”
Laird raised his eyebrows and glanced at Byron who was wearing the same skeptical expression.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Bon said. “He’s acting guilty—but I think he isn’t.”
“I never saw any weakness in Mrs. Markus. She trots around to all the society do’s like she’s way younger than she is,” Byron said. “Weak heart?”
Bon shrugged. “That’s what he says.”
Laird leaned forward. “So, who do you think is behind this?”
“Dalio Santos,” he answered bluntly. Laird fell back in his chair as Bon said quietly, “You’ve got to be really careful.”
They sat silently for a moment or two, then Laird said, “We’ll start tomorrow.”
**
Laird squatted impatiently on his haunches across from the bright red door of the hotel. The door was the only cheerful part of the building. Five stories of drab grey shingle were broken systematically by grimy windows, all open, some with curtains, others without. The clientele appeared no better. That alone made Laird believe Theodore Markus had never been there. Why would he dirty his person with this kind of place?
Salt and Pepper, Investigators had a whole drawer full of notes and pictures of Theodore and the Mrs. They were prominent in society, very wealthy, and open to attack by the bad characters the firm kept track of. But two hours of combing through everything they already had supplied nothing to start their investigation with. So, Laird watched the hotel while Byron watched Theodore.
Twice a husky bruiser crossed the street to send him away. He sniveled and groveled. The doorman—if that’s what he was—seemed to take pity on the old drunk and left him alone. But Laird was thoroughly tired of his role and itched to get into a shower and clean clothes.
His reward came during his second afternoon. She minced along the sidewalk in high heels, black dress clinging tightly to voluptuous curves. Her face and hair matched the hooker in the photo with good old Theodore. Laird didn’t move. His hand under his drooping coat snapped pictures of the woman who walked through the red door, greeted the bruiser, and didn’t come back out before nightfall.
She looked too classy for this place. When she finally exited, she walked away arm-in-arm with the “doorman.” Laird followed like a ghostly shadow.
Two blocks north of the hotel, the woman hailed a taxi, pecked the doorman on the cheek, and slipped rapidly out of Laird’s sight. No way could he follow the taxi, but he’d heard the address she’d given the driver: The Dragon’s Palace, a nightclub owned by Dalio Santos. It was one of his several legitimate businesses.
Back at the office after midnight, the brothers ate dinner and compared notes. “So, it’s definitely Santos,” Laird said. “I can see why he’d want a hold on a council member. But how’d they stage those pictures?”
“I had an idea while waiting for you to get here.” Byron shoved a photograph across the table.
Laird stared at it. “So what? It’s Theodore.”
“Of course, idiot. Look at his head position.”
Laird picked up the picture and held it inches from his eyes. “I don’t get it.”
“It’s the same as in the picture with the hooker. Look at the tilt, and his eyes. Like he’s looking slightly to his left—just like in that other.”
“Let me see the other.” Laird compared the two. “What’s your point?”
“I think someone good with manipulating photos could take this head shot here and put it with a similarly sized nude male body, one that’s wrapped around the woman like in this picture. The sloppy sheets actually disguise details of the guy’s body. Print it and you have our hopeful councilman in bed with the hooker. The rest of this stuff...” He pointed out the liquor bottles and used needles. “...is window dressing.”
“Where’d this picture come from?” Laird held out the one without the hooker.
“One of our student information gatherers took it.”
Laird’s eyes narrowed. “Who?”
“Derek.”
“And sold it to Santos?”
Byron shrugged. “Could be.”
“When’s the last time we saw Derek?”
“It’s been months since he graduated and started that new job.” Byron smirked and held up a card. “I still have his home address and contact number.”
Laird nodded. “We’ll go tomorrow. I gotta have a shower and some sleep.”
**
Neither Derek nor his family still lived at the address Byron had found. Neighbors said they’d left shortly after Derek started his new job, and—no, no one knew the new address. The phone number Byron tried had been disconnected.
“What now?” he asked as they boarded a bus back toward their office.
“I think we should go to the nightclub—try to hit on the woman, get her to talk.”
Byron scowled. “Don’t you think she’s a tad old for either of us?”
“By,” Laird snorted. “I’ve spent the last two days being a drunken old wino. I can look somewhat older than I do now.”
“I don’t know, Laird. Going into Santos’ nightclub doesn’t seem like a smart thing for you to do.”
“I was thinking you should go. You’re a whole lot better-looking than me.”
“Yes, and you can make me look older, too.” Byron sighed. “Let’s think of a safer way to do this.”
In the end, they both went, in tuxedos t
hey rented, with age lines on their faces and pebbles in their shoes to force them to walk more like older men. Laird had grey streaks along the sides of his dark hair. “Makes me look distinguished,” he said. Byron looks like a movie star.
The nightclub shook with loud music and steamed with smoke, sweat, and incense. Well-clad bodies seemed to fill every open space, standing around tables, leaning against the walls, gyrating like idiots on the tiny dance floor; Laird noted the lack of chairs and groaned. They’d taken one step through the door when Byron’s hand gripped his arm and he muttered, “Don’t look. Derek on the right.”
“Chut!” Laird slipped to his left feeling Byron’s big frame just behind. He hoped they’d not been recognized. Derek working here in Santos’ nightclub was totally unexpected. Laird thought the boy had been studying accounting and was very good at it. Good at cooking books, maybe. He felt swallowed by the crowd as it pulsed against him. Like I’m in its stomach or something. Holding his breath to keep from spilling his guts on the polished granite floor, he pushed onward.
A big hand clapped down on his shoulder and he stopped struggling forward. “He didn’t notice us,” Byron whispered in his ear. “Him here makes this doubly dangerous. These disguises aren’t good enough.”
“Right. If you can find a way out of this chaos, lead on,” Laird muttered.
They began moving further to the left and a small breathing space opened before them. Byron stopped abruptly and Laird bumped into him, then heard a sultry voice.
“Well, well, well. What have we here? Tall and perfect, like some golden god.” Slim white hands appeared on Byron’s shoulders and wrapped around his head. Moments later, he was being thoroughly kissed by the woman from the sleazy hotel.
Laird gulped, slapped his brother on the back and moved away saying loudly, “Have a fine time, man.”
**
When Byron rattled the front door with his key at 3:00 in the morning, Laird was leaning the back of his chair against the wall, balancing on the back legs, struggling to hide the worry he’d been feeling. Byron’s tux trousers were thoroughly mussed; he carried his jacket, tie, and shoes in one hand as he fumbled the keys into his pocket with the other.
“Told you she’d go for you!” Laird said cheerfully. The snarl and angry grunt Byron returned didn’t faze him. “Hope you got a lot of useful info out of her.”
“Thanks a bunch for abandoning me!”
“I didn’t!” He slammed the front of his chair into the floor and strode toward his younger brother. “I kept watch from a distance the whole time you danced with her, sat her on your lap, ate and drank with her, and then disappeared into the darkness at the rear. It wasn’t easy, let me tell you. Had to avoid the bouncers and Derek the whole time, appear to be spending money, and pretend drinking so they wouldn’t throw me out. You had it easy but I was there to rescue you if need be!”
Byron growled and collapsed into one of the more comfortable client chairs. “We wound up in Santos’ office, face-to-face with the man. I got a job offer. Seems she wasn’t the only one who liked my looks and my muscles. And she informed me that she doesn’t give her time away. Thousand bucks a night.”
Laird lifted his eyebrows and stared with a look of innocence, as if he couldn’t imagine what his brother was talking about.
Byron ignored him and said with a huff, “I’m to help set up Charmaine Ludlow for a similar blackmail scheme.” He rubbed his forehead to release the tension gathered in the knots above his eyebrows. “Had to lose my follower before I could come home.”
“You hit the jackpot! Looks like Santos wants to assure his influence on the council. Whether Ludlow or Markus wins the election, Santos will have control.”
“But we’re going to stop him.” Byron’s voice was heavy with sarcasm. “I’m going to bed. You come up with a plan to rescue me day after tomorrow during the photo shoot.”
“Wait!” Laird grabbed his brother’s arm to keep him in his chair. “What was it like, face-to-face with the big man?”
Byron’s forehead wrinkled and he sagged back. “It’s funny,” he answered, almost murmuring. “He didn’t seem all that dangerous lounging there behind his desk. We’ve caught so many pictures of that gangster the last couple of years—schmoozing with the wealthy crowd and such, acting bold and dangerous. Up close, he just looked like a tired, middle-aged man.”
Laird didn’t let him go. “He didn’t have his bruisers around?”
“Not once we were in the office,” Byron said more loudly. “It was just him, me, and the woman. Seems she has quite a pull. Maybe he was just being pleasant because he wanted me for the job. I must have come across really well as a wealthy care-for-nobody looking for excitement ‘cause he didn’t even question me deeply about who I was or where I was from. I fit his need. He offered. I accepted. Done deal.”
“Not even a frisson of fear?”
“Not once I sat down in front of his desk. He was almost fatherly.” Byron frowned. “Of course, I’d had quite a bit to drink—I might not have noticed.” At Laird’s chiding look, he added quickly, “She watched me closely; I couldn’t get rid of everything she ordered.” Pushing Laird’s hand away, he stood, staggering a bit. “Now, let me go to bed!”
Chapter 7
It was an hour after lunch and Laird once again sprawled in a drunken heap across from the hotel with the bright red door. According to the instructions Byron had collected from a Santos flunky near the library downtown, he should be arriving with the hooker Larue and a cameraman shortly.
The brothers had spent the day before combing through their folder on Charmaine Ludlow and selected three photographs of the businesswoman, taken by Derek and suitable, they thought, to manipulation. All Santos needed was a good-looking man to pair with her in a compromising situation.
They’d decided that Byron had been pulled into the scheme because every guard, bouncer, or employee they’d seen around Santos’ establishments looked like muscle-bound but stupid goons rather than male prostitutes, except Derek who was a pimply-faced skeleton.
“No one would ever believe he could attract a good-looking, discerning woman,” Laird said with a sneer that morning as he’d ogled his handsome brother, dressed as instructed in casual but expensive clothing.
“Well, I don’t understand what made them think I’d be open to such a deal just by looking at me once,” Byron grumped. He’d said the same over and over the day before although, he admitted, once he’d been singled out, he’d played the role the woman named Larue had obviously been looking for: rich, bored, ready to try anything. Fortunately, he had a hard head for liquor.
“It was effective,” Laird said as he ushered Byron out the door. “Do the same today.”
**
Laird waited, stifling his boredom, fingering the miniature camera secreted beneath his filthy rags. Lord, I’m tired of being dirty. I hope our next job calls for tuxes or suits, or even smart sweaters and slacks for me—not just him.
Heels clacking brought his eyes around while he held his head down in apparent drunken stupor. Larue walked arm-in-arm with Byron; a husky bodyguard followed them, trailed by a short, plump man with a huge black bag. The cameraman. Laird silently snapped shots of their faces, the group together, and each one separately. He wished he could get a shot inside the bag to prove it held photographic equipment, but he’d have to trust Byron to get those pictures with the camera sewn into his sleeve.
Once the trio entered the red door without having glanced at the drunk across the street, Laird flicked on the earbud that would transmit conversation to him from the microphone embedded in the buckle of Byron’s belt. No one greeted the desk clerk and all Laird heard was clumping of heels and shoes on a wooden staircase. He counted, struggling to pick out Byron’s shoes with their tiny taps in the heels. Two levels.
Larue seemed to be the film director, giving Byron instructions on where to strip, how to lie on the bed, where to turn his head. Byron grunted artistically—Larue must
have taken the woman’s place since that was the sound they’d agreed on to indicate that no one else had joined them. Laird pictured the camera man or maybe the bodyguard fluffing sheets into precise positions over the bodies, and unlike Laird’s tiny camera, the one inside was quite loud as it clicked.
He daren’t shake his head, but he couldn’t reconcile the luscious Larue in the place of Charmaine Ludlow. Maybe the one who combines the two photos is capable of modifying the body as well. When this is over, I need to learn how to do that.
Fifteen minutes passed quickly. He counted over fifty camera clicks. Guess he needs a lot for the manipulation. Laird’s attention was yanked to the sound of someone running along the sidewalk and when he chanced a look, he sucked in his breath at the sight of Derek sprinting toward the hotel. Without a moment’s thought, he was up, staggering across the street in time to crash solidly into Derek. As the man fell, Laird pretended to try to catch him while jabbing at the side of his neck with his stiff fingers. Derek went limp and they tumbled to the gutter together.
The doorman rushed out and yanked Laird off the other man’s body. He cursed; Laird ducked a kick and staggered away. The doorman slung the flaccid Derek over his shoulder, then paused in the doorway as first the bodyguard, then Larue and Byron stepped out the door.
“Sorry, Miss Larue,” Laird heard through his earbud. “I ran the drunk off. I’ll take care of Mr. Derek. Let the boss know, would you, that I have him here and we’ll get Doc to take a look at him?”
“Good work, Samson. Come along now, Dear. We can’t be seen loitering here!” She pulled Byron after her and hurried down the street. There was no sign of the cameraman.
Wonder if he does his work in the hotel itself? Deciding Byron was safely away, Laird darted around a corner, glanced up and down the street, and discarded his ragged clothing, filthy hat, and bundle of disgusting blankets into a dust bin. Still smelling of liquor, but at least dressed more respectably, he strolled back to the hotel and booked a room.
