Pepper

by Carol Buhler

  No bellman showed him to room 304 so he took his time finding it, moving silently down the dim, murky hallway of the second floor, listening carefully at each door. At 210, he heard someone moving around, humming contentedly. The soft clicking of what might be a mouse, a faint whir like a computer running, sharp exclamations of pleasure plus a rapid tap-tap of a foot drifted through the door. Laird looked carefully around, then tried the doorknob. Locked, of course. He slipped out his lock pick set and set to work. Within seconds, the cheap lock opened and he burst through the door crying, “Police.”

  It worked perfectly. The cameraman fell off his chair and Laird was on him instantly. One bang of the head against the floor and the man was out. Laird swiftly took pictures of everything he could: rumpled bed, liquor bottles, camera and tripod, computer with a shot of Byron and Larue on one screen, another screen showing one of the photos of Ludlow, and, especially, the red kerchief Byron had left on purpose to prove he’d been there. When no one came to investigate, he slipped a tiny storage card out of a pocket—he always kept one with him just in case—and plugged it into the computer. Rapidly, he scanned the data storage and began downloading.

  When he heard someone hollering from the first floor for Jarvis, he grabbed his card out of the computer and slipped out the front-facing window. Climbing like the monkey he’d been as a child, he reached the roof, pulled himself over the ridge, and took off running. The distance to the next roof was jumpable—he never hesitated, although it didn’t seem that anyone was after him.

  Once he was on the ground again, he hailed a cab and directed the driver to the library where Larue was supposed to leave Byron after he’d completed the job. Laird hadn’t realized he’d been holding his breath until he frantically pulled air into his lungs as he saw his brother standing right where he was supposed to be. He had the taxi leave him down the block, then worked his way back, watching for onlookers who might have been wanting to see who his brother met.

  He strolled past, lifting a finger to the side of his nose—his signal for them to meet back home. Byron sneezed in recognition and wiped his nose with a handkerchief. Laird sighed in relief. Whatever had caused Derek to be running toward that red door had failed—at least for now. They’d prepare for any future confrontation with the man and his boss.

  **

  A few days later, the police arrested a cameraman, a hotel clerk, a doorman, a bodyguard, and Larue for attempted extortion. Nothing they found, however, could be used to implicate Dalio Santos and the five accomplices refused to admit that anyone else had been involved in their scheme.

  Salt and Pepper Investigations received a large amount of money through Bonami Jeffs, for no apparent reason. No pictures were ever found or released regarding Theodore Markus. The election went quietly on with Charmaine Ludlow taking the office of Councilman. And, Laird learned how to manipulate photographs on his computer.

  The brothers increased their self-awareness of people around them and paid extra attention to the security of their firm. They never encountered Derek again, but they also didn’t know what he’d wanted that day at the hotel and feared it had something to do with recognizing Byron.

  Chapter 8

  S&P prospered tremendously over the next two years, as did the law firm of Jeffs, Cresson, and Whitman. Laird and Byron did numerous jobs for Bon and his associates, gathering data for their cases. They also gained other influential clients as word spread of their efforts in Theodore Markus’s activities, a circumstance that both gratified and worried them. Gradually, they became so busy they were forced to hire an assistant to keep track of their schedules. Although they still used students to help with information collection, they vetted their helpers carefully and kept close tabs on those who left their service.

  The new assistant, Jaycee, was one of those students: a thin girl with wildly spiked white hair and an aggressive attitude. Laird thought her perfect; Byron humored her.

  “What’s up for me today?” Laird asked her early one morning—she insisted on coming to work at 6:00 am which suited him. Byron never appeared out of his room until hours later.

  “Huge do at Chase Building. 3:00.” She never answered with complete information, expecting him to follow her shorthand chatter.

  “Oh, yeah. Ludlow and Markus debate over the wharf renovation. We should pick up a bunch of useful gossip in that crowd. But until 3:00?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Really?” Laird turned in a circle, glancing around his office/home. “What will I do with myself?”

  Jaycee didn’t answer, but said instead, “Byron didn’t come in last night.”

  Laird whirled and stared at her. “How do you know?”

  “Door ajar when I got here. He’s not there.”

  Laird lunged across the space to Byron’s door and flung it open. The bed was still made—had not been slept in. “Where is he?” he snapped.

  “Don’t know. Girl?”

  “He’d have called. He always does.”

  Jaycee shrugged her shoulders.

  “Where was he the last time he checked in?”

  “Central Park, 4:00 yesterday afternoon.”

  “Why?”

  “Meeting with Bon. Message came in the morning setting it up.”

  Laird froze in fear. “You didn’t talk with Bon personally?”

  “No. His handwriting.” She shrugged again, then her eyes grew wide as she seemed to finally notice Laird’s attitude. “Really. His handwriting.”

  “Get Bon on the phone.”

  A minute later, she held out her phone for Laird to take. “Corah Lee,” he said to the law firm secretary, “was Bon to meet Byron yesterday afternoon near Central Park?”

  His face turned gray and he slumped as he stared at Jaycee. “Bon’s been in court solid the entire week,” he whispered to her. “No appointment with Byron.”

  He straightened and returned to the phone. “Tell Bon that Byron didn’t come home last night. I’m on it and will send word as soon as I learn something...No, don’t bother him now. Just when he’s free. He’ll want to know.”

  Clicking off the phone, he handed it back to Jaycee. “Get the word out. Everyone we have available sniffing for info. Byron’ll hate us if he is with a girl, but I very much fear he isn’t.”

  Byron had not returned by 3:00 that afternoon. Laird cancelled his plan to attend the big debate and continued to visit every place he could think of that Byron might have gone on his own. No one had seen him that day. Where he might be if it wasn’t his own idea, Laird had no clue.

  A city policeman called shortly after 5:00 and told Laird that there’d been a scuffle reported at Central Park around 4:00 the previous day. “One of our trainees said you’d want to know about it,” the cop said. “Don’t know why. We found nothing but scuff marks in the grass when we investigated. Looks like something was dragged. But no clues to tell us what or why.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Laird said, controlling the quiver in his voice. Byron had not gone with anyone willingly. He asked the policeman if he could see where the incident had been reported and arranged to meet him and the trainee there. The young woman turned out to be one of S&P’s former data gathering students who’d heard from Jaycee that Byron was missing and put two and two together.

  Unfortunately, as the cop had said, there was nothing useful to learn at the location.

  At 7:00, Jaycee called to report nothing new had come in and that she was still in the office.

  “Go home, girl!” Laird said brusquely. “You can’t help Byron from there.”

  “No. Staying here.” She hung up on him.

  At 9:00, Bonami called. “Nothing yet,” Laird told him. “I’m headed back to the office to grab some food and a couple hours of sleep if I can. Talk to you in the morning.”

  He dropped off the bus and started down the half block to the office, then came to a standstill. Something was wrong. He couldn’t hear anything, or see much of anything in the dark, but his sense of ri
ghtness was raising the hairs on the back of his neck. It was a feeling he remembered from long ago, when he’d come home in the dark to find his mother dead.

  Hugging the wall of the warehouse, he crept from shadow to shadow toward his office. No lights on. Jaycee must have finally gone home. I should have called her, he thought. He reached the front door. It was open, just a bit—too much!

  Pulling the gun he always carried, he slammed the door open and lunged inside, hitting the switch as he passed. Lights flared on chaos. Blood pooled around Jaycee’s white spikey hair where she lay on the carpet just inside. He didn’t have to look closely to know she was dead. Her bare arms and face spotted with purple from a beating, her throat had been cut. Tortured for info about me? She didn’t tell them, he knew.

  He glanced around the open room. File cabinets pulled over and smashed open. Photos and papers littered the floor. Chairs had been thrown against the walls, the desk toppled over. The locked drawer where he usually stored his gun had been chiseled open. They found nothing there.

  Byron’s door was smashed inward and the contents of his room had been dragged into the open area, shattered, sliced or ripped violently apart. Toward the back where his bedroom was located, he saw more broken furniture.

  Rage filled him. Santos.

  Without investigating further, he pulled the door shut and locked it, as it should have been. Did Jaycee open the door to her murderer? Or had they caught her as she was leaving? He’d know soon.

  Half an hour later he stood in the shadows outside The Dragon’s Palace. His heart cold, he’d buried his emotions with icy control as he waited patiently for one of the bouncers to come out for a smoke. Finally, a man stepped through the doorway wearing the appropriate uniform: dark suit, white shirt, black tie, bulky with muscle, and apparently low on brain or caution. Laird was on him in a moment, knife to the man’s ear, ready to plunge upward into his brain.

  “Whot!” The startled shout was buried under Laird’s glove.

  He whispered in the thug’s ear, “Any noise and you’re dead.” The bouncer, although bigger and heavier than Laird, didn’t challenge the knife point.

  “What happened to Byron? Answer really softly.”

  “Who’s Byron?” the thug croaked.

  He wiggled the knife. “You know something. You twitched at the name.” Blood trickled down the man’s neck. “What happened? Where is he?”

  “I don’t know where but Jax does. I’ll fetch him.”

  “No, you won’t. You don’t move.” He shifted the knife again and the blood stream grew.

  “Really,” the whisper sounded strangled. “I don’t know where they took him. I wasn’t part of that assignment.”

  “Sorry to hear that.” Picturing Jaycee’s white hair soaked with blood, Laird plunged the knife upward. The thug died quietly. Dragging the man deeper into shadows, Laird sat down to wait for another one to come out for a smoke, or to look for his comrade.

  The next man was Jax. Dressed just like the first, he came out calling, “Greg.” Again, Laird launched himself at the man’s back, clung like a monkey, and put his knife to the point of the man’s jaw. “Where’s Byron?” he rasped.

  Jax was slightly more agile than Greg. He tried to fight and Laird had to use the knife to sever the man’s ear while keeping his other hand tightly over the man’s mouth. “Where’s Byron?” he said again once the man had stopped moaning about his ear. Good thing the doors are thick, Laird thought when the noise didn’t bring someone to investigate.

  “Don’t know.”

  “Greg said you did. You went on that take-down. He didn’t. Where’s Byron?”

  “Chuten Greg. What does he know? Nothin’. Yet flaps his mouth.” At least the thug was quiet with his swearing. Laird pushed his knife into the same place on the other side of the man’s face. “Easy with that thing,” the man wheezed. “I got nothing to give my life for. He’s down at the wharf—Building 33, second floor.”

  “Alive?”

  “Was when I last saw him.”

  Laird uncoiled the thin rope he’d brought and tied up this guy. “If Byron’s alive, you will live. If not, I’ll be back.” He stuffed a rag he’d brought into the man’s mouth and dragged him into the shadows, even though he knew someone would probably find him and set him free shortly. They can’t fail to notice inside that two of their bouncers are gone.

  He ran down the street two blocks, pulled on an overcoat to hide the blood on his clothes and hailed a taxi. They arrived at the wharf within thirty minutes. Laird knew no one from The Dragon’s Palace could have arrived any quicker, but they could have called and warned whoever was guarding Byron.

  He moved quickly and quietly toward Building 33. It was dark but that meant nothing. It occurred to him that maybe he should have called for backup, but who would it be? Byron was backup, but it was Byron he needed to rescue. He’d have to do this alone.

  Knife in one hand, gun in the other, he reached the door. It was unlocked. He quietly turned the knob and eased it open. To his relief, it moved without a creak. Enough moonlight came through a window somewhere that he could see doors around an open space, as if it were a lobby in a business building, not a wide-open warehouse. He’d have to check each door to find the stairway as nothing indicated it as far as he could tell.

  He slid slowly to his left, turning the knob on the first door. Luck was with him: stairs. They were silent as he moved carefully up them, keeping close to the wall. A closed door indicated the second floor although the stairs kept going. It wasn’t locked and it didn’t creak as he opened it. Someone keeps this place in good condition. More than a warehouse.

  A hall extended toward the other end of the building, four doors on either side. No light peeked under any door. No sound reached him. He’d have to check each one. Again, he went left and opened the first. Dimness. A sense of large, empty room.

  Silently, he crossed the hall to open the first door on the other side. Again, large, empty room. Musty smell.

  He continued down the right side and opened each door. Nothing anywhere. If that Jax lied, I’ll find him and slit his throat! Starting up the other side, he opened the first door. It screeched. The loud noise froze him into immobility just as a faint groan reached him. No movement. No footsteps running toward him. No gunshots. No shouts of alarm.

  He felt along the wall next to the door and found a switch, flicked it on, and blinked in the sudden brightness. In the middle of a vast room, Byron hung limply from wrists wrapped in rope attached to a chain suspended from the ceiling. He was alone and naked.

  Laird raced to him to give him support. His brother moaned again and Laird glanced up. His flesh had been sliced in hundreds of places on his torso, legs, and arms; blood seeped from tiny openings. What skin was intact was dark with bruising. His eyes were swollen shut, his mouth bled. He’d been beaten unmercifully. And yet, he lived.

  How to get him down? Laird looked frantically around for something to stand on, to release his brother’s wrists. A chair leaned invitingly against the far wall. Laird dashed for it. As he grabbed it, he turned just in time to be missed by the shotgun propped to fire when the chair moved. Breath rushed out in a massive eruption but he didn’t pause. Racing back to Byron, he stood on the chair and used his knife to cut the cords binding his brother’s wrists.

  It was a set-up, he knew. He had to get Byron out before the thugs returned or set off their next trap. Slinging the heavy body over his shoulder, he ran toward the door, then dashed down the hall and down the stairs. How he did it, he never knew, and years later, he would wonder where the incredible strength had come from that night.

  Of course, the taxi hadn’t waited as he’d asked. Hidden in a dark pool of shadow, he lay Byron down, even though it caused his brother to moan again. The cuts on his back had to be extremely painful against the hard concrete, but Laird had to rest. And think. He’d heard no indication of others around. Maybe they’d expected the shotgun to take care of any rescuer. What n
ow?

  Hands slick with blood, he fumbled his phone out of his pocket and called Bon. It was late in the night but his friend answered on the first ring. Laird croaked, “Wharf. Pier 3.”

  “I’ll be right there,” he heard and sighed. Bon’s office is nearby. He won’t be long.

  He’d still heard nothing of other people moving around when Bon’s old car pulled up. Laird stepped out of the shadow and waved for help. Bon and both of his associates jumped out of the car and hurried toward him. They gasped when they saw Byron’s condition, but leaned in and lifted him off the ground. They gently moved toward the car—still no adversaries, which Laird constantly worried about.

  “To your office?” the driver asked. Laird couldn’t remember his name at the moment.

  “No!” he said explosively. Bon looked at him with concern. “I’ll explain later. Go to your place, please.” They did.

  Bon called a doctor friend from the hospital who arrived with two assistants and full medical bags. They stitched and applied antiseptic and pain medicine. All the while they worked, Byron did not regain consciousness and Laird fretted more than ever.

  “Why doesn’t he wake up?”

  “Judging from the bruising around his head, I’d say he has a severe concussion,” the doctor answered.

  “Shouldn’t we take him to the hospital?” Bon asked from the corner where he sagged against a cabinet.

  The doctor stood and looked Laird in the eye. “Only if you want this reported to the police.”

  “Ah, no.”

  “We can do everything we need to do for him right here. He shows no signs of internal bleeding. Truly, most of this looks awful but it’s pretty insignificant to his overall health and ability to recover. I’m afraid the worst might be the condition of his brain. I’ll watch him for a couple of days and if I think there’s bleeding inside his skull, we’ll take him in regardless of the police.”

  “Okay,” Laird said in a small voice, feeling completely useless and needing to do something. He caught Bon’s eye and motioned with his head that they should leave the room.