Carolina Crimes

by Nora Gaskin Esthimer

  Emma at least had her own bathroom, kitchenette and a separate bedroom with a door that locked. The other girls, who had to live side-by-side with Delmer, gave Emma jealous looks when she came and went.

  She tied her hair in a ponytail and no truer description of her hair was ever uttered. Horse-like. She checked the thin windows up near the ceiling, ground-level outside, to see if it was still raining. It was. The concrete walls were slick with groundwater leeching in. Mold grew in fuzzy patches on the window frames.

  I’ll be glad to get the fuck out of here.

  There was still planning to do. It would be too easy to just bolt out of town so soon after Slick was sent away. She was a known companion to a convicted bank robber and the money still hadn’t been recovered.

  Shit, she knew that because she hadn’t given it to them.

  Emma had already given her notice at the bookstore where she worked saying it was too much to handle when Slick went away. She needed a fresh start. She did a little research using the Internet at the library and found out that the Cayman Islands were an awfully good place to go with a sack full of cash if you wanted no questions asked.

  Her research was less than scientific, but satisfied her urge to find an island on which to get lost.

  The plan was to go to Miami for a few weeks, get a post office box, be seen around town and act like she was setting up a new life and then bust out for the islands with the money.

  For the moment, she needed a withdrawal from the bank of Slick’s booty. That meant heading out late for a stop at the storage unit. She knew once she was there she wouldn’t be able to resist counting a little bit more of it, rolling around on top of it. That first night she even got so worked up she held two paper-wrapped bundles in one hand and finger-fucked herself with the other. When she came, she rubbed a big wad of bills all over her pussy, getting them wet and sticky. Still legal tender, though.

  She locked the door behind her and crept up the stairs.

  Delmer was there. She jumped and swallowed a scream.

  At thirty-three years old you could hardly call Delmer a boy, but for all the brain power he exhibited it was all you could think of when you spoke to him. He stood tall and rotund and awkward as a newborn cow. The constant slick of sweat on his forehead even reminded Emma of afterbirth. The way the old woman babied him it was a wonder she ever cut the cord.

  None of the girls in the house liked to be around him. There were rumors he breastfed until age ten.

  Delmer had a special fixation on Emma. Probably because she’d been there for over two years, much longer than the one or two semester stays the college girls had.

  “Goin’ out?”

  “Yeah, Delmer. I was.”

  “Where to?”

  “I got stuff to do. Don’t you?”

  “Naw. It’s my bedtime.”

  He took up the whole doorframe at the top of the stairs so Emma was trapped until she could divert his attention, but she wasn’t holding anything shiny at the moment.

  “Well, then you should go to bed,” she said cheerily, the way a kindergarten teacher talks.

  “You look good.”

  “Thanks, Delmer.” She sighed. Guys like Slick and Delmer. Such was her lot in life. Curse her mother for the crooked teeth and mole genes.

  “You goin’ out?” he said again.

  “You know what?” Emma turned on the steps. “I just remembered I forgot something. I guess I’ll stay in. See you later, Delmer.”

  She descended the stairs under his looming watch.

  CHAPTER 3

  Like a drunk college kid with his hand in a cup of water, the rain made Bo piss his pants. The thick fog of unconsciousness contributed to the pants wetting, but he was awake now and soaked through from the rain much more than the piss.

  The van rested comfortably on a set of train tracks at the bottom of a fifty-foot incline, one Bo had ridden all the way down. The van barely qualified as a vehicle any more. Roof ripped open, tires shorn off, windshield gone and passenger cabin caved in, pine branches embedded in the frame, floor cracked open. The fault line in the steel floor ran right across where the eye hook that held Bo to the floor used to sit. He was untethered from the twisted metal of the van, but still shackled to himself.

  His world moved slow, a feeling he was familiar with. Since he was twelve, Bo had been a serious self-medicator. He’d come to like the slow feeling, not the speed. All efforts were on procuring the pot and pills to keep things mellow and slow. Vicodin and Percocet were favorites. Oxycontin would do in a pinch. His time doing crystal meth nearly did him in. He found a person inside he didn’t like when he was on speed, but the person who moves slow, that was a dude he could hang with.

  He blinked rainwater out of his eyes. Lightning flashed, thunder right on its heels. Across from him in the open carcass of the transport van were Slick’s old shackles. In the handcuffs, jutting out like a middle finger, was the key.

  Bo moved as quick as his syrupy brain would allow and kept a death grip on the tiny key. Losing it in the chaos of the wreckage and the storm would be game over.

  He went for the leg shackles first. Bent over, it was hard going without the light of the electrical storm above to help him find the miniscule opening. He was sixteen all over again, trying to figure out where to put his dick into Christine Tordello.

  The light flashed and he took a mental picture of the hole in the shackles and jammed the key inside. But the light stayed. Bo looked up. Train.

  The noise of the storm, the cottony muffle of his hearing from the shotgun blast and the probable concussion from his ride down the hill made him fail to notice the van had come to rest on a set of tracks at the bottom of the ridge, nor did he hear the sound of an approaching locomotive.

  No time for what-ifs. This wasn’t a sprint to the end of the tunnel or a quick make-it-off-the-bridge moment in time. This was move-your-ass-or-get-squashed.

  Bo turned to his right and took as long a stride as his leg shackles would allow which wasn’t much. It took three shuffling steps before he jumped out the back of the van which was blown open the way he’d seen photographs of cars in downtown Baghdad. Bo fell into a tangle of weeds and shrubs.

  The train never saw the van. It ran through at full speed and took the van with it, a giant wad of gum stuck to the front of the engine. A dozen boxcars followed and helped push the broken bones of the van, with two dead corrections officers inside, for two miles down the track before it could stop.

  Bo felt down to his ankles. He exhaled deeply. The key was still there in the lock. He undid his legs and then his wrists thinking, Fucking hard to be mellow when there’s a goddamn freight train two feet from your face.

  Click here to learn more about Criminal Economics by Eric Beetner.

  Back to TOC

  Here is a preview from Polo’s Long Shot, a Nick Polo mystery by Jerry Kennealy…

  Chapter 1

  George Rigsdale hated me. Well, maybe hated is too strong a word, but despised might not be strong enough. Rigsdale was the in-house investigator for Feveral & Lenahan, one of the largest full-service law firms in San Francisco. They represented many of the major insurance carriers in the United States, Europe, and Asia, and handled everything from dog bite cases to litigation involving major airplane crashes, mergers, and acquisitions, as well as insurance and banking transactions for their clients. They also handled criminal matters, mostly of the type where the feds go after a bank or stock brokerage firm.

  I was called in when Rigsdale and his staff of seven computer geeks couldn’t get the job done.

  I did feel a little sympathy for the guy. He had to go strictly by the book in his investigations—F&L did not want him doing anything illegal that might get them sued—while I, an independent contractor, could commit the types of misdemeanors and occasional felonies needed to get results.

  Rigsdale was on the short side. He had a triangular-shaped face, wheat-colored hair, with a silver-dollar size bald spot at
the back. He had a precisely trimmed mustache pasted under a ski-slope shaped nose. His eyes were pale gray, and whenever I spoke to him I focused on his eyes for a second or two and then moved up to his eyebrows. Rigsdale would adjust, tilting his head back to maintain eye-to-eye contact, and then I’d raise my focus again, and he’d follow suit. My objective was to have him tilt so far back that he’d fall backwards and land on his butt.

  We were in his office, which was located on the seventeenth floor of the Steuart Tower Building. The floor-to-ceiling window had a view of the skyscraper across the street. The offices that overlooked the bay, Alcatraz, and the Golden Gate Bridge were occupied by the company attorneys.

  It was a good-sized room with a walnut-topped black metal desk, a black leather chair, a matching couch, and a table holding three computers, two printers, and several wireless routers, their monitors of red lights silently winking and blinking.

  One wall featured a watercolor landscape with angry, foam-tipped waves crashing into a peppermill shaped lighthouse. A brass-printed tag the size of a bar of motel soap at the bottom of the frame identified the artist as Laura Feveral.

  Rigsdale was usually a neat and trim dresser, but today his suit jacket was off, his shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows, his tie at half-mast, and his collar undone. He reminded me of one of those TV weathermen, the ones who sit behind a desk in an air-conditioned office with makeup people at the ready. When there was a really big storm they liked to do the roll-up-the-sleeves bit and have their hair in slight disarray, while interviewing a reporter who was actually out in the storm, holding onto a streetlight for dear life.

  “I may have an assignment for you, Polo.”

  He liked to pronounce my name as PowwLoww.

  “That’s Italian isn’t it?” he’d asked at our first meeting.

  “Sicilian,” I’d told him, causing his frown to deepen. George claimed to be a direct descendent of one of the families that came to America on the Mayflower. He hadn’t liked it at all when I’d pointed out that an Italian by the name of Christopher Columbus had beat the Mayflower by a couple of hundred years.

  “Who’s the attorney that asked for me?” I said. The only assignment Rigsdale would hand me would be sweeping the parking lot.

  He sank down into his chair and leaned forward with his elbows on the desk. “Mr. James Feveral.”

  Jim Feveral was the senior member of the firm, and a fan of mine. I had helped him out in several cases. He seemed to get a vicarious pleasure in having me run down difficult witnesses or serve subpoenas on people who reacted violently to those kinds of things.

  Rigsdale leaned back in his chair, sighed, then leaned forward and opened a drawer slowly, as if afraid of what was inside.

  He withdrew a thick manila envelope and placed it carefully in the middle of the desk.

  “We want you to locate someone.” He slid a grainy black and white photograph from the file, rested his index finger on the corner and slowly pushed it toward me. “This someone.”

  The man in the photo was tall, with a full head of dark curly hair. He had a trench coat draped over his shoulders like a cape and was glaring in the direction of the camera, as if he didn’t appreciate having his picture taken.

  He was leaning against the wall of an outdoor café, holding a cup of coffee in one hand, a cigarette in the other. It was impossible to know from the photo where it was taken, but the cobblestone street and table umbrellas had a European flair.

  “Who is he, George?” I asked casually, knowing that it irritated him to be called by his first name by those he considered underlings.

  “Al Lamas is the name he’s using. It wouldn’t surprise me if there are others.”

  “What’s Jim Feveral’s interest in him?”

  Rigsdale coughed into his fist and gave me what he must have considered a hard look. “Mister Feveral merely wants you to find the man. I’ll handle the rest.”

  I picked up the photograph. The café Lamas was standing in front of had a canvas awning, but the name wasn’t visible.

  “When and where was this taken?”

  Rigsdale stirred in his chair, as if to relieve an aching muscle. “Rome, Italy. Approximately six months ago.”

  “Who took the photo?”

  “What difference does it make?” Rigsdale said, his voice hoarse with anger. “We think Lamas is here—in the Bay Area.”

  “The more I know about him, the easier it will be for me to find him, George.”

  He responded by shoving the envelope across his desk. “Take it. There are more photos in there, along with some of my reports.” His voice softened. “There is some urgency. If you cannot devote full time to the case—”

  “I know. You’ll get someone else. What’s your interest in this Mr. Lamas?”

  “We believe he’s…taken something that doesn’t belong to him. The owner wants it back.”

  “What did he take?”

  Rigsdale chewed that over—literally, his teeth riding over his lips. “An object of art. A chauri, a flywhisk, with a carved ivory handle and yak’s tail brush.”

  “You’re kidding me, George.”

  He made a waving motion with his right hand. “It was allegedly used to keep the flies off some prince in India in the fifteenth century. There are a few photos of it in the envelope.”

  “I know that you and your staff have worked hard on this, covered all the data bases, ran him through social media, civil filings and motor vehicle records, and haven’t come up with anything, which means Lamas is going to be difficult to find. Why is he so important to Feveral? I have to know the details.”

  Rigsdale raised an eyebrow as he considered the request. “All right, but this is a very confidential situation, understood?”

  “Understood.”

  “Lloyd’s of London is the insurance carrier. Mr. Paul Bernier, a highly valued client of ours, is the owner of the chauri. We do a great deal of legal work for him. He’s a former international banker and has a home in Nicasio, over in Marin County, a penthouse apartment here in San Francisco, and a villa in France. He has many business interests, including wine. He owns more than a thousand acres of vineyards in prime Napa Valley and Sonoma County locations, as well as throughout France. And he is a volunteer curator at the city’s Asian Art Museum.”

  Rigsdale glanced over to see if I was properly impressed.

  “Until right now, I’ve never heard of the gentleman. Do we know what Al Lamas does for a living?”

  “He described himself to Gloria, Mr. Bernier’s adopted daughter, as being a stress-relief consultant.”

  Ah, consultant—one of those delusive words. You don’t have to be licensed to be a consultant. You could describe yourself as a brain surgeon consultant, but have no real knowledge of medicine or surgery—you’re just a consultant. Stress relief could mean anything from yoga, to massage, to drugs.

  “Is Gloria Bernier dealing with some kind of stress?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Does she have an idea as to where he lives, or where his office is located?”

  “She told me that they had a social relationship, however, she never visited his residence or office.”

  “Where’d she meet him?”

  “At a nightclub called Noche on Townsend Street. I’ve been there. No one at the club knew of Lamas.”

  “You’ve told me about Gloria. Are there other children?”

  “A son, Andre, who was killed in Iraq in 2003.”

  “Army? Marine?”

  “No,” Rigsdale said wearily. “His death has nothing to do with the case, but if you must know, Andre Bernier was civilian, an art advisor for UNESCO, the United Nations Scientific and Cultural Organization, at their Paris office. He went to Iraq to help in finding their lost art treasures.”

  “What about a wife?”

  “Mr. Bernier is a widower. Twice. His first wife was born in India, where they lived for several years. She died many years ago. His second wife, Glori
a’s mother, also passed away. If any word of this leaks out, Polo, you’ll never get another assignment from Feveral and Lenahan, I can promise you that.”

  “How does Lamas tie in with the missing flywhisk?”

  “He was…friendly with Gloria. She invited Lamas to the Nicasio residence while Mr. Bernier was away on a business trip. The chauri was kept in a buffet cabinet in the dining room. When Mr. Bernier returned, the chauri was gone. Now Lamas has disappeared.”

  “But there’s no proof that he actually took it, is there?”

  “No, but he’s the obvious suspect.”

  “How much was it insured for, George?”

  Rigsdale picked up a ballpoint pen and began popping the point in and out. “One million dollars.” He stabbed the pen into the manila envelope. “Don’t get any ideas of a finder’s fee, Polo. Your job is to locate Lamas. Nothing more.”

  Rigsdale was still smarting over a thirty-thousand-dollar finder’s fee I’d received for retrieving a stolen painting by renowned artist Cy Twombly. At a recent auction at Christie’s, one of his works went for sixty-nine-point-six million dollars. To the uneducated eye, mine included, some of his graffiti-like scribblings look like they could have been done by a child freewheeling with crayons.

  I had found the missing painting in a home belonging to a museum janitress, a hardworking Filipino lady who juggled three part-time jobs. She had taken it from a rack of artwork stored in the basement of the San Francisco Modern Museum of Modern Art.

  “I thought it was junk,” she’d told me. “That they were going to throw it away. I wanted to show it to my granddaughter. She could draw better that that.”

  I believed her, about why she took the Twombly, not her granddaughter’s drawing talents, so I’d simply returned the painting to the museum—with no questions asked.

  “There’s one more important item to discuss, Polo. The police have not been brought into this. Mr. Bernier wishes to have it handled discretely. Understood?”