We found the house on Route 5. Jon circled around it and pounded on the door. No one home, no nearby neighbors. We drove back to Northampton. Jon would do more research on the address. He might be able to get a search warrant from a judge, but he had his hands pretty full right now and search warrants were not easy to come by. Since he had two of the goons who had grabbed Belle, the uniforms would start doing a door-to-door with their photos near the two murder scenes. Murder was, I remembered, the crime he was trying to solve. Springfield and Holyoke were pretending to cooperate with the effort to find Belle, but it was common knowledge they had mixed feelings about Scarpelli. Some of them liked him. Some wanted to bust him. Some considered him a pillar of the community. One way or another, a lot of them made a living because of him. And how Belle had made a living was also common knowledge. I didn’t think prostitutes were very high up on the police list of people to be grateful to or interested in tracking down.
“I’ll see you tonight. Try to stay out of trouble,” Jon said when I dropped him off at the station.
Humph. He was assuming I would be at his house that night. I still had mixed feelings about Jon’s in-charge attitude. It was fine as long as it wasn’t me he was trying to be in charge of. I took my bag of breakfast and headed for Cool Rides.
Mona met me at the door. I held the doughnuts in front of me defensively.
She scowled. “I hate it when it’s slow.” She plopped herself into a chair. “Give me those damn doughnuts.”
We ate doughnuts and looked bored. After 15 minutes I was pacing. After 20 I had eaten five doughnuts and was as bloated and grouchy as a pregnant cat.
“I’m going uptown. See what I can scare up.” Susan, the crazy lady lawyer with the red shoes, inexplicably popped into my mind. She hadn’t been heard from since Belle moved in with me. I had questions like, why did she shoot her husband’s butt? The husband who now had a hole in his head. And how did that tie in with Horace? Or with Scarpelli? Was she still a friend of Belle’s? Did she know about Belle’s disappearance? Could she help me find her? And, of course, where did she get those shoes?
“Whatever,” said Mona. She probably assumed I’d try to scare up some fares. I might do that, too.
I pulled up in front of the office of Susan Young, attorney at law. A bunch of miserable-looking people were sitting in front of the dentist’s office, but the attorney’s side was locked up tight. I drove back to Cool Rides and looked up Susan Young in the phone book. The only listing was her office. I went to the driver’s log, checked to see if any other drivers had picked her up before, and there she was. Andrew had taken her from a condo to her office three weeks ago. If that was her home base, she lived in the old jail condos on Union Street. When the state finally shelled out the money for a new jail on the outskirts of town, some enterprising developer had bought the aging county jail and converted it to very expensive condos. Sometimes the law pays well. I wondered when the city of San Francisco would see Alcatraz for its real potential. What kind of cool condos could that rock be?
Susan Young had a three-bedroom on the first floor, partially below ground. I parked the cab around the corner on the street.
I rang Susan’s bell and waited. Ten seconds passed. I could hear someone on the other side of the door, but it was muffled. Good soundproofing. I waited another 10 seconds and rang again. Susan opened the door.
“Honey, what are you doing here?” Her mouth formed an O of surprise and her forehead wrinkled.
“I just stopped by to see if you had any thoughts on Belle. You know she’s been kidnapped.” I leaned against the door to force her to ask me in. It didn’t work.
“Now is not a good time.” She didn’t back up. I changed tactics.
“I could come by later.” I stared at her.
She shrugged. “Call the office. Make an appointment. I really don’t have time right now.” Now she sounded angry.
“I’ll do that.” I turned and walked away. When I looked back, she had closed the door.
I trotted around the block until I was behind the jail. There were ground-level windows on the side of the condo, hidden behind foundation plantings. I wiggled between the bushes. Bars covered the window on the inside. I looked in and saw Belle sitting against the wall with her butt on the bare floor. There was no furniture. I tapped on the window. No reaction. I banged harder. Belle finally noticed me.
She pushed herself to her feet, gesturing wildly. I couldn’t hear her voice. Soundproof glass? Finally, I read her lips.
“Get help, stupid!”
I wiggled back out of the bushes, stood up and found myself face-to-chest with a very large man in a black suit.
“Inside.” He gestured with the gun in his hand. We paraded around the corner and up the front steps to Susan’s condo. He knocked and the door jerked open.
“What now?” Susan Young stood there, holding the door and looking really pissed.
“Uh, I found her at the window. The special-room window.” His speech was slow and he sounded uncertain about what he was doing and why he was doing it.
“Jesus Christ, you just never give up, do you?” Susan stepped back. The big guy shoved me inside. “Search her and put her in with the other stupid.”
I was escorted down the hall to the bare room where Belle was sitting, again on the floor.
“Man, oh man. I can’t believe they caught you. All you had to do was get out of here.” Belle rested her head against the wall.
“Belle, what the hell is going on? What’s wrong with Susan? Is Scarpelli holding her hostage?”
“You dummy.” Belle sighed. “Susan is Scarpelli’s kid. Like father, like daughter. Only, I’d guess, she’s tryin’ to run the whole show. I’m thinkin’ Daddy isn’t too happy.”
“Susan Scarpelli? How come the cops didn’t know about this?” I couldn’t believe she could float right under their radar.
“Nobody knows. I only found out because one of the goons slipped and called her Miss Scarpelli. I’d heard through the grapevine the old man had a daughter out on the West Coast. I guess she decided to come back and join his ‘family’.” She made the word sound obscene.
I was on information overload. “So, what’s with her husband getting whacked?”
“Turf wars?” Belle stood and went to the window. “Horace must have got mixed up in it. He wasn’t too bright sometimes.”
I joined her at the window. We could see the infamous Lincoln Town Car through the bushes.
“Like between her and her dad? Why shoot Horace?”
“He had something. I don’t know what. Damn. They think I know where he stashed whatever it is. The bastard must’ve told them I knew. Which I don’t.” She kicked the wall and grabbed her toe.
“Fuckin’ solid walls. Shit.”
I kept looking out the window. “Hey.” I pointed at Susan and two of the men getting into the town car.
“That means they left the idiot guy here with us.” Belle paced.
“He must have the keys to open this door. We need a plan.” I pretended I had just eaten a handful of Lucille’s cookies. Sugar always makes me think more clearly.
“Yeah, and he’s also got a gun. A big stupid gun with a big stupid body and a tiny stupid brain. He opens that door, most likely he’s gonna shoot you. Be sure you put that in your plan.”
“Can he hear us through this stuff?” I pushed on the door. Solid.
“It’s soundproof, so only if you scream. I found out when I needed to go pee. Jesus, did I scream. That’s the only reason he’ll open the door.”
Soundproof doors and barred windows required some paranoia. Susan’s grasp of reality was beginning to seem less and less solid.
“He won’t shoot me.” I stripped off my T-shirt and handed it to Belle.
Then I dropped my jeans and lay down on the cold, hard, bare floor.
“Strangle him with the T-shirt.” I spread my arms and legs. “Start screaming.”
Bell stared at me for about two
seconds. Then she pounded on the door and screeched, “She’s trying to kill me. Heeelllppp, get her off me.”
The guy who had found me at the window opened the door. He held a big gun with an even bigger silencer on it. He stared at my mostly bare body. He looked like he might have a regular relationship with a bottle of steroid pills. Great for bulking up the body, but they don’t do much for brain function.
“Wow!” He grinned and took a step forward. Belle was behind the door. She threw the T-shirt over his head, executioner-style, jumped on his back, and wrapped her legs around his middle. He careened around the room, arms cartwheeling the air. I jumped up, shoved my hands between his legs, grabbed the big squishy and twisted as hard as I could.
“Aurrrgh!” he screeched. I guess the gun went off because his foot exploded. Bellowing like a bull, he launched himself, headfirst, into the wall. And sank to the floor like a wet mop. Belle dismounted.
“Hot damn. We’re outta here.” She pried the gun out of his hand and snatched the key from his pocket. I grabbed my T-shirt off his head. Ugh.
“Wait.” I shimmied into my jeans, rammed feet into sneakers and staggered out the door. My oversize bag was sitting on the kitchen counter. I pulled out the duct tape and finished the job. I promised myself I would call Jon as soon as we were safe. Right now, I was on adrenaline overload and I was pretty sure I was Wonder Woman even with the wrong fashion statement. Belle locked the door to the special room.
We went out the front door and raced down the steps and around the corner to the cab. Amazingly, it was still there. The keys were in my bag. No one ever said the bad guys were smart.
“Honey, you got steel nerves. I can’t believe you dropped your drawers like that. I can’t believe you even thought of it. Yeah, lady, nerves of steel.” Belle laughed and crammed herself into the passenger seat.
I giggled, “You want rock solid nerves, try driving down the interstate at 80 miles an hour in one of these units with 18-wheelers on all four sides of you.” In a Scion XB, the peripheral vision is so good you can see the fine print on the truck next to you. I’d done early-morning runs where the night crawlers were just coming off shift and the day hoppers were joining the crowd at the same time. The road was coated with trucks of every size, shape and color. I’d gotten boxed in more than once and it was really scary, almost up there with big guys with guns.
I jumped in and took off. I was giddy with adrenaline and put a little more foot into it than I needed. My mind was racing around thinking about weird stuff, like trucks and the interstate. And Jon and sex, oops!
“Where do you think Susan went?” I asked Belle. I had no idea what to do. I thought for two seconds about the police. Other than our firsthand experience, we had no hard evidence Susan was involved in any illegal enterprises. By the time Jon got a search warrant, if he got one, Susan would have come back and the guy we left in her condo would be gone. Belle’s credibility was shaky, given her previous profession. Susan was a lawyer and very slippery. I bet she had plenty of good explanations for what had happened. We decided to hole up in Jon’s house while we came up with a plan.
I pulled the cab into Jon’s garage and let the door down. No reason to advertise our presence. We struggled inside, our bruised bodies suffering from an emotional high that was dropping like bird shit. I sagged against the door.
“Lock up,” I said to Belle. “We can go next door and see if Lucille is home. At least she’s got a gun.”
“A gun? I had a gun. In my bag when I was snatched.”
“Your bag! I’ve still got it.” I went into the guest bedroom and came back with the oversize bag. I upended it on the kitchen counter. Shit. She had a gun, all right. And a couple of pounds of ammo to go with it. No wonder the guy at the vet’s office had gone down fast.
“Oh my, where did all that come from? Someone must have left it in my purse. What’s a woman to do?” Belle blinked in wide-eyed wonder.
“Right. We need to get a plan together. Susan won’t be happy when she gets home.” I hoped she’d gone out for a long time. I thought about Jon and his reaction to what had just happened. I’d have to tell him and we needed to make the decision about how much to tell, soon.
I unlatched the locks and peeked out the door. No action outside. I reached my hand around and knocked on Lucille’s door.
“Coming.” I heard her sing out. These walls were not as soundproof as Susan’s.
“Why, hello, dearie.” Lucille’s head popped out. We could have held our conversation door to door, but I liked her for backup. I had seen her in action. Big gun, good aim. “I have cookies,” she said.
From mayhem and murder to cookies and tea. Belle and I slipped out Jon’s door and through Lucille’s.
“Hi. We didn’t really have time to meet properly before. This is Belle, and my name is Honey. How’s the cookie baking? Getting lucky?”
The old lady extended a hand with a smear of cookie dough across the back. “I’m Lucille. And, no, you can’t call me Lucy,” she said to Belle. “I’m trying a new recipe. I got lucky with the last one, but there’s always room for improvement, I say. The better the cookies, the better the sex. Men will extend themselves a bit more if the rewards are great enough.” She nodded her head. “Although I don’t believe Jonny needs cookies to perform well.”
And how would you know? I wondered.
I edged closer to the source of bliss.
“Go ahead now, take as many as you need. They may enhance your performance as well. I’ll ask Jonny next time I see him. Where is he anyway? I don’t see him much anymore. I hope that means you’re keeping him busy.”
Oh, yeah, we were doing that.
“Cookie-enhanced sex performance?” Belle asked and snatched the platter off the table.
“Um, maybe we should give Jon a call. Let him know we’re all sitting around eating cookies. That is, you and me and Belle.” I was hoping Lucille would volunteer to call him and mention Belle. Then I wouldn’t have to.
I was on my third cookie when we heard a car in the drive. I jumped.
“Nervous, dearie?” Lucille went to the window. “I know an affair with Jonny might fill me with anticipation. Oh good, it’s him,” she said, looking out the window. “I’ll just put some cookies on a plate for you to take over to him. And let me add these. I got the extra-large size. I’ve only seen him naked once, but Jon is well hung. He worked undercover on a male-strip-club bust. They were running a hijacking ring specialized in stealing shipments of sex toys and selling them out of the back of the strip joint. I just happened to be in the audience one night.” She handed me a package of extra-large condoms. I tried to imagine Lucille stuffing dollar bills into Jon’s G-string. I was envisioning Jon as a male stripper when his front door slammed. Lucille stared off into space, maybe rerunning the picture of Jon in his stripper outfit. “Of course, sometimes they stuff socks in those stringy men’s panties. You know, to make it look more enticing.” She smiled absently and patted the condoms in my hand. “But I’m pretty sure Jonny is for real.” I suspected she was right, but I decided not to add to the image.
Cookies and condoms. The complete guide to my life. I opened Lucille’s front door, stuffed the condoms into my pocket and led with the cookie plate. We hadn’t called Jon and neither had Lucille. I wondered what he was doing home at this time of day.
“Stop dragging your feet. And hold your chin up. You’re in charge here. Besides, surprise is on our side,” Belle said, slapping open Jon’s front door. She strode across the doorstep.
And there stood Lieutenant Jon Stevens in his underwear.
His clothes lay in a heap beside him.
Belle was ahead of me when Jon looked up.
“Jesus. Don’t you knock?” Then he realized who was watching him so intently. “Where the hell did you come from?” He stared at Belle. “Honey?” His voice was low and controlled as his eyes met mine. I was hiding behind Belle.
“Wow, what’s that smell?” Belle inched close
r to Jon’s really nice, mostly naked body. He had just the right amount of everything. Muscle, hair (not much) and other yummies. They were boxers, so determining his amount of hungness was difficult. Which is not to say I didn’t try in the few seconds we got to take a look.
“Huh? Oh, domestic dispute gone bad. Vomit from the husband, disputed dinner from the wife. Dinner was worse. That’s why I’m standing here. Shit!” He turned and stomped into the bathroom. I heard the shower running. Five minutes later I heard drawers opening and slamming shut. His problem made me consider, however briefly, my own lack of culinary skills.
“Maybe we should put those clothes in the laundry,” I said.
“Maybe we should put them in the garbage.” Belle wrinkled her nose.
“Maybe I’ll make that decision.” Jon was dressed in clean clothes and was rubbing a towel over his damp hair. “Care to tell me about how the two of you got here? And where you’ve been? Last I knew there was some doubt about where you were and whether you were there voluntarily.” He looked pointedly at Belle.
“We drove in a taxi,” I said.
“There’s a care package for you at Susan Young’s condo on Union Street. And by the way, it’s Susan Scarpelli.” Belle drew out the name and said it as if she were handing Jon first prize. She retreated to the kitchen, out of the line of fire.
“Let me guess. The package is wrapped in duct tape. And I know it’s Susan Scarpelli. We finally got the connection from Springfield. And speaking of Springfield, what would you like me to tell them?” Jon looked at Belle.
“Forget Springfield. And that package? It’s big and ugly and if you don’t get it soon, it’ll be gone.” Belle smiled broadly.
Jon turned back to me.
“You are a constant source of entertainment.” He picked up his cell phone. “Yeah, Stevens. Get someone out to attorney Susan Young’s condo in the old jail on Union Street. Fast. No, there may be a hostage inside.” Jon looked at me again, raising his eyebrows. “I’ll meet them over there.” I guess the hostage possibility bypassed the need for a search warrant.
Small Town Taxi (Honey Walker Adventures Book 1) Page 11
