Client On The Run (A Nick Teffinger Thriller)

by R. J. Jagger

  “You have a gun under the counter?”

  “Yeah, right here.”

  She pulled out a black revolver and set it on the countertop.

  A Smith & Wesson.

  Loaded and ready to go.

  “It’s never been fired but almost got fired that night,” she said. “I think he knew I had it, because the look on his face changed and he didn’t try anything. He didn’t even say anything, for that matter. He just turned and left.” She chuckled nervously. “I wouldn’t work nights alone after that for six months.”

  “So you never gave him a tattoo?”

  She shook her head.

  “No.”

  “Did he tell you his name?”

  “Not that I remember.”

  “Does the name Robert ring a bell?”

  No.

  It didn’t.

  “Tell me about the tattoo he wanted.”

  “It was a woman getting her throat slit,” she said.

  Yardley expected something like that.

  Still, the words shocked her enough that she stopped the coffee cup halfway to her mouth.

  “Can you draw me a picture of it?”

  “I don’t remember it that clearly, except for what I just told you.”

  “How big did he want it?”

  “We never got to that.”

  “Where did he want it?”

  “That either.”

  “Did he get it done at some other shop?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I never saw him again or heard anything about him after that.” She paused. “Do you have any tattoos?”

  No.

  “I’ll give you a small one on the house if you want,” Bethany said. “It’ll only take about thirty minutes.”

  Yardley wasn’t interested but felt it would be rude to dismiss the offer too quickly.

  “What would you recommend?”

  Bethany unbuttoned her blouse, pulled her bra down and exposed her left breast.

  On it was a small blue flower with green leaves; gorgeous.

  “Maybe something like this,” she said.

  “Okay,” Yardley said.

  As soon as the word came out of her mouth, she knew she should suck it back in, before it was too late.

  But she didn’t.

  “Really? You want it?”

  “Sure, why not?”

  Thirty minutes later she had a blue flower with green leaves on her left breast.

  “We’re sort of like blood sisters now,” Bethany said.

  Yardley gave her all the cash she had on hand as a tip—almost $200—hugged her, and stepped outside feeling a little edgier, and a little freer, than when she walked in.

  She pulled the 4Runner into thick traffic and headed for the Denver Public Library. She didn’t even know the radio was on until Barbara Streisand’s “Evergreen” caught her attention, one of the best songs ever. Ordinarily she’d crank it up and sing along but she turned it off.

  There was too much on her mind.

  She parked on Bannock, grabbed her laptop and headed for the library entrance with a brisk step. On the way, she called Bethany and said, “I don’t want you to get scared or anything, but be careful.”

  “I will.”

  “Promise?”

  “Cross my heart.”

  81

  L ake Pontchartrain looked like an ocean from the air; and the Mississippi River looked like a python. That was the best part of New Orleans—the water. Seeing it again made Dalton pull up a memory of screwing Trish Pendergast in the bathroom of the Canal Street Ferry after an IMAX movie.

  How long ago was that?

  Four years?

  Five?

  Too long.

  Maybe he should look her up while he was here and see if she still did that little trick with her tongue.

  He rented a blue Dodge sedan at the airport, took I-10 east and worked his way into the French Quarter—Vieux Carre. James Madden owned a building on Royal Street, one block south of Bourbon, not far from Lalaurie Haunted House.

  When he got there he found something he didn’t expect.

  Robert Poindexter.

  Mr. Pirate.

  “You’re supposed to be in Denver killing Lindsay Vail,” Dalton said.

  Poindexter exhaled.

  James Madden busted in.

  “Forget about her,” the man said.

  Madden looked exactly like Dalton remembered—black, muscular, shaved head, ferociously strong. In fact, so powerful that Dalton wasn’t sure if he could take him in a fair fight.

  “What’s going on?” Dalton asked. “Why am I here?”

  Madden explained.

  Namely, the detective from Denver, Nick Teffinger, somehow figured out there was a voodoo doll with his name on it, and traced it to New Orleans. He was snooping around every place in the city that had anything even remotely to do with the occult.

  Asking questions.

  Busting into back rooms.

  Trying to find the source of the death curse.

  Plus, he had Poindexter’s photo all over the TV, asking people to call in with information.

  “This guy needs to be dead,” Madden said. “I don’t want him breathing any more.”

  Dalton looked at the pirate.

  Then back at Madden.

  “Is the female going to be involved?”

  Madden nodded.

  “She’s flying into town as we speak,” Madden said.

  Dalton’s pulse raced.

  “Does that mean I finally get to meet her?”

  “That’ll be her call,” Madden said. He looked at his watch. “She’s landing right now.”

  Although Dalton had never met her, he’d scraped enough bits and pieces together over the years to form a vague image in his mind.

  Black.

  Beautiful.

  Important looking.

  Deceptively deadly.

  Reportedly, she had more kills than Dalton and the pirate combined. Dalton had never said it out loud, but he was pretty sure that if they ever decided to take him out of the circle, she’d be the one to get the assignment.

  “I picture her as hot,” he said.

  “Forget it,” Madden said. “Keep your dick in your pants and your eyes on Teffinger.”

  82

  T effinger had more coffee in his gut than he should, but he got another cup anyway and carried it outside the hotel to the street, where he could breathe. The New Orleans humidity hit him hard and the traffic filled his ears. He walked down the street, needing to be in motion. Then he remembered what Tammy Bahamas said and dialed her.

  “You said I could call if I needed help,” Teffinger said.

  Absolutely.

  So what’s going on?

  “Jessie-Rae rented a car yesterday,” he said. “I need to get a BOLO going on it, but the only person I know in town is a detective by the name of Max Moniteau, who’s a jerk. I need another contact.”

  “Max Moniteau?”

  Right.

  “There are rumors about him,” Tammy said.

  “What kind of rumors?”

  A pause.

  “Not over the phone,” she said. “Avoid him.”

  “That’s what I’m trying to do.”

  “I know,” she said. “I’m just emphasizing it. You need to be working with Maggie Bender. I’ll call her and have her contact you.”

  “Who’s Maggie Bender?”

  “She heads up missing persons, born and raised in New Orleans.” Tammy said. “She’s a good woman. You can trust her.”

  Ten minutes later, Maggie Bender called. Based on her voice, Teffinger pictured her as black, sixty and southern through and through. Within two minutes he knew she was a competent detective and, more importantly, she didn’t tell him to get out of New Orleans. He gave her a detailed explanation of everything he’d found out so far.

  “The BOLO’s going out right now,” she said. “If we get any hits, I’ll let you know.”
r />   “Right away?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thank you.”

  There.

  Done.

  At least the cops were on the lookout for Jessie-Rae’s car now.

  Up ahead, a homeless woman sat on the sidewalk, leaning against a building with her legs stretched out. Her ankle-length dress was tattered, her hair was oily and her hands had lots of veins.

  Teffinger pulled his wallet out and put a $10 bill in her hand.

  She looked at it to see the denomination, clenched her fingers around it when she saw what it was, and then pointed her face up and smiled.

  Half her teeth were gone.

  “God bless you,” she said.

  “You too.”

  He took five steps, turned around and gave her another ten.

  Then he headed back to Jessie-Rae’s hotel.

  On the way, he called Sydney and explained what was going on. He gave her the number of Jessie-Rae’s VISA card—the one she used for the hotel and the rental yesterday—and said, “I want to know every purchase she’s made in the last 24 hours and I want instant notification if it’s used again. Can you do that?”

  Absolutely.

  Right away.

  “I think I should come down there,” she said.

  “No,” he said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because right now, the only thing Lindsay Vail has going for her is you,” he said. “It’s bad enough that I abandoned her. What’s going on with her, anyway?”

  “Nothing new.”

  “Shake the trees,” he said. “Make something fall out.”

  Silence.

  Teffinger could read her mind.

  “I know it’s been a long time,” he said, “but we need to proceed as if she’s still alive.”

  “But if you’re right and you actually saw the pirate down there in New Orleans—well—I mean, obviously the guy didn’t bring her with him—”

  Teffinger frowned.

  “First, I’m not positive if it was him or not. Second, her body hasn’t shown up anywhere. Right?”

  “Right—”

  “So shake the trees.”

  He was hanging up when he heard, “You still there?”

  He was.

  “Did you check those airline manifests I emailed you?”

  Yes.

  Nothing stood out.

  “Well, I’m sending you some more.”

  Good.

  Thanks.

  “We’re still running down the names on our end, but it’s slow going. Did you hear about our new case?”

  No.

  “It’s the rapper, G-Drop, who didn’t show up for a concert at Red Rocks on Wednesday night,” Sydney said. “Double-F himself opened the file—a Missing Person Report, technically; except everyone knows the guy’s dead. Everyone’s walking on eggshells to be sure nothing gets screwed up. CNN’s practically living down here.”

  Teffinger didn’t know that.

  He hadn’t been watching the news.

  “Well, have fun.”

  Back at the hotel, he took the stairs to the 10th Floor, went into Jessie-Rae’s room—1014—and found it as he left it. He searched it again, discovered nothing of interest again, and plopped down on the bed.

  Now what?

  He closed his eyes.

  The caffeine spun his brain and shook his fingertips.

  A dark feeling washed over him, a feeling of death.

  Who did it belong to?

  Lindsay Vail?

  Jessie-Rae?

  Him?

  The room was empty without Jessie-Rae.

  In fact, the whole world was empty.

  The silence made him realize that he needed to tell her something—something he should have told her before when he had the chance.

  83

  Y ardley was in the Denver Public Library, searching through old piles of the Rocky Mountain News, when she stumbled upon an article that made her chest pound. A Boulder woman named Andrea Copperstone disappeared one night last August while taking her poodle for a walk. The dog was found the next day, two miles away, still wearing the collar and leash. The woman wasn’t found; then or since.

  A photograph of the woman accompanied the article.

  She was attractive.

  Very attractive, in fact.

  There was a tattoo on the woman’s neck, barely visible above the collar of a white blouse. Yardley couldn’t tell what it depicted, nor did she care. The important thing is that it was on the woman’s neck, meaning she was hardcore.

  Maybe hardcore enough to work in a tattoo shop.

  Maybe she tattooed the pirate—Robert.

  Like Lindsay Vail did.

  And Dawn Hooker.

  She called Dawn Hooker and asked if she knew Andrea Copperstone.

  She didn’t.

  She called Joe Cotter at the Ink Spot.

  He never heard of her either.

  Then she fired up the Gateway and Googled the woman.

  She got no hits.

  She checked the phone book to get her address.

  There was no listing.

  Dead end.

  Suddenly her cell phone rang and Dakota’s voice came through. “Can you meet?”

  “Why, what’s up? You sound weird—”

  “I am weird.”

  They met for lunch at the Supreme Court Café and Nightclub on the 16th Street Mall, a short walk from the library. Dakota, as always, was dressed to the nines; a combination of money, class and expensive fragrances.

  She looked excited.

  They ordered shrimp salads and then Dakota got to the point. “The very fact that Salter called you this morning means he has something to hide,” she said.

  Yardley took a sip of iced tea and nodded.

  “Agreed.”

  “I’m pretty sure he killed Whitney White,” Dakota said. “They were sleeping together and then something went wrong. Exactly what, I don’t know. Something that made him need to shut her up.”

  Yardley shrugged.

  They’d already had this discussion.

  “Could be,” she said.

  “Now i’m thinking something else, too,” Dakota said. The tone in her voice made Yardley pay attention.

  “Like what?”

  “I think he also killed Ryan Ripley,” Dakota said.

  The words were so unexpected that Yardley held the iced tea in her mouth for a second before swallowing.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know yet,” Dakota said.

  “Well that’s a pretty wild conclusion, based on nothing to support it.”

  Dakota shrugged.

  “I wouldn’t say nothing. Rumors are floating around the firm that this wasn’t Ripley’s first trip down to the blowjob alleys,” she said. “The word is that he’d been doing it for some time. Salter apparently knew about it and rebuffed Ripley on a number of occasions to get him to stop before he got his picture in the paper and embarrassed the firm.”

  “Who said that?”

  “It’s just gossip,” Dakota said. “But here’s the important part. Jeff Salter knew that Ripley would be down there again, sooner or later. Now, if you were Salter, and wanted to kill Ripley, what would be the perfect murder?”

  Yardley cocked her head.

  “So, what you’re saying, if I understand you, is that Salter followed Ripley to the alley and then stabbed him in the back so it would look like some lowlife did it,” Yardley said.

  Dakota twinkled her eyes and nodded.

  “It’s perfect,” Dakota said. “He takes Ripley’s wallet and Rolex to make it look like a robbery. No one in the world would ever suspect him.”

  Yardley wasn’t impressed.

  Dakota must have read the doubt on her face, because she added, “Salter is one of the few people in the world smart enough to put a plan like that together. And he’s gutsy enough to do it.”

  Their salads arrived.

  Yardley dug in, suddenly starv
ed.

  Then she said, “So what’s his motive? Why in the world would Salter go to all that trouble and risk to kill Ripley?”

  “I don’t know,” Dakota said. “That’s what we need to find out.”

  Yardley tilted her head. “Dakota, I love you darling, you know that,” she said. “But I’m really starting to worry about you. You keep coming up with these extreme theories based on nothing. I’m worried that you’re turning yourself into a crime junkie or something.”

  She expected Dakota to back down but she didn’t.

  “I’ll admit that they’re extreme theories,” she said. “But we also have lots of extreme stuff going on. Whitney White is dead. So is Ryan Ripley. So something’s going on. And like I said before, the very fact that Salter called you this morning to get me to back off means he’s in it up to his eyeballs.”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  Dakota speared a shrimp with her fork, brought it to her mouth and pulled it off with her teeth.

  “When Ripley went into the alley, he was obviously going in to get serviced—say, to get a blowjob,” Dakota said. “Now, if I’m going to stab someone in the back in an alley, and I knew he went in there to get a blowjob, I’d wait until he was totally distracted, meaning in the middle of it. Then I’d sneak up from behind and do it. Does that make sense?”

  Yardley shrugged.

  It did, as far as that part of it went.

  “That means there was someone else there at the time, namely the person who was sucking Ripley’s dick.”

  True.

  “She must have seen Salter’s face.”

  “Maybe,” Yardley said. “But if it was Salter, like you say, he might have worn a mask.”

  “That’s right, we don’t know one way or the other,” Dakota said. “But what we do know is this—we need to find this little blowjob girl and talk to her.”

  “How are you going to do that?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m going to start tonight, down on Colfax,” Dakota said. “You want to come?”

  84

  D alton walked out of the Greyhound bus station with a one-way ticket to Baton Rouge in hand. Under a muggy Louisiana sky, he hiked back to his car a block down the street and handed the ticket to the man sitting in the passenger seat—Robert, the pirate.