by Tom Fowler
“Jerry, where are you?” he said.
“At home, boss,” Jerry said. “What’s up?”
“I finally got a line on that fucking guy and his girl.”
“The one who skipped with your money?”
“Of course the one who skipped with my money.”
“Where are they?” I hoped Jerry would ask.
“The Dewey Inn in Dewey Beach,” Esposito said. “Get over to my house now. We’re going to get them and bring them back.”
“I’m on my way.” Jerry hung up.
I put my pita down and grabbed my car keys. The Caprice had a powerful V8. It could get there quickly. I counted on it to beat Esposito and his goon squad.
Dewey Beach. I knew approximately where it was but never been. My parents favored Ocean City in Maryland, no doubt because they shared a luxurious condo with a couple of other families. My GPS told me the shortest route would start the same way as the trips to Ocean City: Route 50 over the Bay Bridge. I weaved in and out of traffic, keeping the Caprice above 80 and above 90 when I could. I also kept a sharp eye out for police; getting pulled over would give Esposito and his men a chance to overtake me.
The Bay Bridge slowed me. One lane was closed due to the offseason for beach traffic, and there were enough cars in the two remaining lanes to force me to plod along at about 60. After the bridge, I gained speed and made up some time. I got onto Route 404, then Route 16, which would take me into Delaware. The narrower state routes required driving slower. I maintained about 15 over the speed limit but needed to be more vigilant for Johnny Law, who enjoyed more places to hide off the highway.
A little while later, I turned onto Coastal Highway. About eight miles remained to the Dewey Inn. I considered trying to reach Chris or Anna in advance but didn’t want to spook them. They had fled (though not very far) before, and I didn’t want to panic them again. The Caprice devoured the last few miles, and I turned with screeching tires into the parking lot at the Dewey Inn. It was a three-story hotel finished in stone the color of sand. I didn’t see any silver Subarus in the parking lot, but I also didn’t see any car like Esposito’s. Yet.
I parked in the registration lane and went in. It was a few minutes after eight-thirty, and no one was checking in, so I walked straight to the sixtyish man behind the desk. I showed him my ID and pictures of Chris and Anna on my phone. “I know they’re staying here,” I said, “and I need to find them before someone else does.”
“Someone else?” He gave me a wary look.
“Someone whose associates will toss you around and smash this place looking for them,” I said. “So unless you want those things to happen, I need a key to their room now.”
A minute later, I sprinted up the stairs to the second floor, armed with a keycard to room 215. I found it about halfway down the hall on the left. The card opened the lock, and I pushed the door into the room. Anna Blair stood up from the sofa and looked at me with wide eyes. Chris Sellers glanced around in panic, looking between the door and the balcony for a means of escape.
“What are you doing here?” Anna said.
“I heard Esposito knows where you are,” I said. “He and some of his men are on their way. We need to move.”
“Who the hell are you?” Chris said.
Anna answered for me. “He’s the detective I told you about.”
“Great, we all know each other,” I said. “Let’s chat later. Time to go.”
I walked past Chris and looked out the window. Their room offered a spectacular view of the parking lot and Coastal Highway. I saw two cars pull into the parking lot. The lead car, a large black sedan, showed the damned MISTER E license plate. “Shit,” I muttered.
“What?” Chris said, standing beside me at the window.
“They’re here,” I said. Two of Esposito’s goons got out of the other car and started for the front door. “We’re going to need to take the back way out. Let’s go.” Anna gaped at us as we moved, so Chris herded her along. I led them to the stairs, looked at the handy fire evacuation diagram, and found the rear exit past the basement pool and fitness center. We went down, coming out in a hallway. The fitness center and pool were on opposite sides. Ahead was a glass door to the outside.
“Let me go first,” I said. I took my gun out and heard Anna gasp. I walked to the door, looked through it in both directions, and slowly pushed it open. I didn’t see anyone. “Let’s go,” I said. Chris and Anna followed. We hugged the building as we made our way around the side toward the front. I unfortunately left the Caprice directly in front, right where Esposito could see it, and where he’d probably have a crony waiting for us.
Sure enough, he did. I peeked around the corner of the building and saw one of his goons standing between the Caprice and Esposito’s car. He hadn’t seen me yet. I turned back to Chris and Anna. “Where’s your car?” I said.
“Out front,” Anna said, casting her eyes down when Chris glared at her. “It was the only spot I could find.”
“Argue later,” I said. “For now, wait here and stay down.”
“What are you going to do?” Chris said.
“Deal with the welcoming committee.”
I put my gun away and walked around to the front of the building. The goon noticed and turned to give me the once-over. I hadn’t seen him before. Hopefully, he wouldn’t recognize me, either. He didn’t make any aggressive move as I walked closer to him.
“Damn wife never remembers where she leaves the car,” I said, shaking my head.
The complaint drew a sympathetic smirk and nod from the goon. I patted the pocket of my windbreaker. “You got a smoke?” I said.
“Sure,” he said as I approached When he reached into his jacket, I gave him a hard kick in the balls, then two elbows to the head. He dropped. I found a gun in his jacket, so I tossed it onto the roof. I crouched and moved to the Caprice, looking into the lobby. Esposito and one of his goons got into an elevator. The other one pummeled the poor man behind the desk.
I waved Chris and Anna to me. They kept low and scurried to the Caprice as I unlocked the doors. “Get in and stay down,” I said.
“Where are you going now?” Anna said.
“To stop the guy in there before he beats the clerk to death.” I closed and locked the doors behind them, then walked into the lobby. Esposito’s henchman held the clerk against the wall. Even from ten yards away, I could see the clerk was already unconscious, his face beaten into a bloody mess. The lackey stared at me as I approached. He let the clerk go, and the poor fellow sagged to the floor, somehow not hitting his head in the process.
“I know you,” he said.
“How nice for you,” I said. “Want to try your shit on someone who can fight back?”
He flashed a sinister smile and came at me. I blocked one punch, then another, and answered with a short jab into his solar plexus. The goon backed off, breathing hard. I pressed the advantage, launching two kicks he blocked and a third he didn’t. The kick to his midsection staggered him. I moved forward and took a glancing blow to the face before blocking a couple other punches. He threw another, and I grabbed his arm, locking it in a hold threatening to snap his elbow. He grunted in pain.
Esposito and his other crony would have been up to the second floor and room 215 by now. To end this, I gave the goon a quick kick to the back of his leg, which dropped him to one knee. Then I let go of the arm lock long enough to slam his head into the counter. A smear of blood remained as his head bounced off, and he slumped backwards, unconscious. I picked up the front desk phone and called 9-1-1. “There’s been an assault at the Dewey Inn,” I said. “Send police and an ambulance or two.” I hung up before the operator could finish her follow-up question, sprinted outside, and got into the Caprice.
“What happened back there?” Anna said as I fired up the engine.
The wheels shrieked as I stomped on the gas and we left the Dewey Inn’s parking lot. “I convinced the guy he needed to treat the hotel staff more courteously
,” I said. Two figures emerged from the hotel in my rearview mirror. I also heard sirens in the distance.
“What the hell have I gotten into?” Chris said as we drove away. I watched for any cars following us and didn’t see any.
“We’ll have about two hours to discuss it,” I said.
We rode in silence until we crossed the Bay Bridge. Anna sat beside me up front, and Chris Sellers rode in back. I saw no signs of Esposito or any other forms of pursuit. In the recesses of my mind, I realized I should have taken the five seconds to wipe my fingerprints off the hotel phone. The Dewey Beach police would dust the scene and discover I was there. My prints were confined to the phone and a couple of doors, and they could get lost in the mass of prints all over the doors. I could probably explain things to the police’s satisfaction, but I didn’t want to have to go back to Delaware and do it.
A minute later, I said, “Chris, I think we need to call your brother. He’s the one who asked me to find you.”
Chris frowned. “Not yet,” he said.
“The kid is worried sick about you.”
“Don’t you think I know?”
“I’m not sure,” I said. “You take money from a gangster, disappear with your girlfriend, and then go even further off the grid when I manage to track you down. So you’ll forgive me for not knowing how much you prioritize your brother and how he feels about this whole fucking mess you created.”
Chris stared at me in the rearview mirror. “I guess I deserved that,” he said, his expression softening.
“And now I think I deserve an explanation,” I said.
“You do?”
I jerked the wheel and pulled onto the shoulder, ignoring the horns of protest from a couple nearby cars. The Caprice shuddered to a stop beside the highway. “What are you doing?” Anna said.
“It’s a long walk back,” I said, unbuckling my seat belt and half-turning to face Chris. “But I’m sure Esposito won’t be too far behind. You can probably hitch a ride with him.”
“Come on,” Chris said. “We need to keep going.” He looked between me and the rear window as if his head were on a swivel.
“Then start talking.”
“Chris, listen to him,” Anna said. I could hear desperation in her voice.
“Or what?” Chris said, ignoring his girlfriend.
“Or you can practice your hitchhiking,” I said.
Chris shot me a defiant look. “You think you can get me out of the car?”
I laughed at him. “You stupid asshole. I just took out two of Esposito’s goons in about fifteen seconds. So yeah, I’m pretty sure I can toss you out of my car.”
The defiant look fled Chris’ face. He was a smart guy. I could almost see him doing the math in his head. He relented with a nod. “OK, fine, I’ll tell you what happened. Just get us out of here.”
I buckled up again, stomped on the gas, and merged back onto Route 50. Esposito was slippery. He might have gotten away from the hotel before the police arrived. I made sure to keep the Caprice above 80 and checked the rearview mirror often, both for police and jackass gangsters.
“There’s someone I want to talk to when we get back,” I said. “You can unburden your soul then.”
Chapter 13
When we got closer to Baltimore, I called Joey. “It’s almost eleven,” he said.
“Sorry,” I said. “I know how badly you need your beauty sleep.”
“You’re hilarious. What’s up?”
I gave him the brief version of what happened with Chris and Anna. “They don’t do a very good job of running and hiding,” I said. “They might need the help of a professional.”
“Let me guess,” said Joey. “They’re in your car right now.”
“How did you know?”
“It seems I’m working late tonight. How far away are you?”
“About twenty minutes.”
“Bring snacks,” Joey said and hung up.
“Who’s that?” Anna said.
“Someone who might be the answer to all your problems,” I said. “If I can keep him well fed.”
I found a 24-hour Super Walmart nearby featuring a bakery. The breads had been picked over, but the sweets were still in good supply. I grabbed a blueberry pie, a box of donuts, and a package of store-baked chocolate chip cookies. We got back in the car and drove the rest of the way to Joey’s. I took the back roads to minimize the chances of encountering Esposito.
Think of the devil, and he shall call. My phone rang. “Keep quiet,” I told Anna and Chris as I answered on speaker.
“You’re a very meddlesome man,” Esposito said.
“I don’t know what you mean,” I said.
“You expect me to believe you weren’t at the Dewey Inn recently?”
“I don’t really care what you believe. But yes, I was there.”
“So you have Chris and his girlfriend?”
“No,” I said. “They were gone by the time I got there.”
“I’m not sure I believe you,” he said.
“What you believe is your business.” In the passenger’s seat, Anna looked at me with wide eyes. Chris, to his credit, sat in the backseat and sulked in silence. “But I asked the guy at the front desk, and he said they recently left. Their room looked like it.”
“He let you into their room?”
“You can get a lot more out of people when you talk to them rather than have one of your goons beat them half to death.”
“He’ll live,” Esposito said.
“So will both of the assholes I dealt with.”
“Ralph has a bad concussion.”
“Ralph should learn how to talk to people.”
“You might do well to learn that yourself,” Esposito said and hung up.
“He has a point,” Chris said. “You might want to watch how you talk to him.”
“Tell you what,” I said. “You return the money you stole, and maybe he’ll pay for me to go to charm school.”
Chris shook his head. “He’s dangerous.”
“And you stole his money,” Anna said, pounding on the console. “If you know he’s dangerous, why did you steal his money? Especially after. . . .”
“After what?” I said when she trailed off.
“Nothing.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Chris added quickly.
“Why do I have the feeling I’ll definitely need to worry about it?” I said.
A half-hour later, we sat around Joey’s kitchen table. Chris and I each ate a cookie. Anna declined any of the treats. Joey already put away two cookies and was halfway through a piece of blueberry pie covering most of the plate he put it on. Anna frowned at Joey’s eating. Chris, for his part, looked like he wanted to be anywhere else. He probably did. I didn’t care.
“The first thing you need to do is call your brother,” I said to him. He shrugged. “He’s worried about you.”
“Brian shouldn’t worry about me,” Chris said.
“He does. He hired me to find you. If you don’t call him, I will.”
Chris looked at me and pursed his lips. He didn’t answer and didn’t make a move for his phone.
“Jesus Christ, Chris, call your brother,” Anna said. “For the first time in a while, don’t be such an asshole.”
He glared at Anna like she hit him. Anna stared back. This went on for a few seconds until Chris relented and pulled out his phone. “You’re right,” he said. He made the call, saying, “Hi, Brian” as he walked into the next room.
Anna shook her head as he left. “Ever since this mess began,” she said, “it’s like he’s been a different person.”
“Stealing a gangster’s money will do it to you,” I said.
“Why not give it back?” said Joey.
“It’s complicated,” Anna said.
I knew she wouldn’t simplify it here, not with Chris around. On a different tack, I said, “Why not simply leave?”
“I love Chris. When he told me what he did, I was mad, b
ut . . . I love him. I never thought it would end up like this.”
Joey finished his pie as Chris walked back into the room. “I want to hear it from the top,” I said.
Chris sat heavily in a chair and nodded. “All right. About a month ago, a guy approached me and told me his brother had a proposition for me.”
“Danny Esposito,” I said.
“Yeah,” Chris said. “His face was familiar, but I couldn’t place him.”
“You’d seen him at Hopkins?” Chris nodded. “But he wasn’t your graduate admissions officer?”
“No.”
I wondered how Danny Esposito knew about Chris, then. Did the graduate admissions department share records of all their prospective applicants? “Anyone want coffee?” Joey said, interrupting my thought process, such as it was.
No one did, so Joey made a cup for himself on his Keurig. If Chris and Anna were going to need his services, he’d probably be up for a while. “OK, Danny Esposito comes to you with an offer,” I said. “Then what?”
“I recognized him, so I figured I’d hear him out,” Chris said. “Otherwise, I would’ve blown him off. He arranged a sit-down with his brother.”
“Where?” I said.
“Why’s that matter?”
I took a deep breath. Helping Chris was trying my patience, which wasn’t a boundless resource. “Because it’s a place he might go back to,” I said. “Where was it?”
“I don’t know . . . some Chinese buffet in Towson.”
“Towson or Parkville?”
Chris pondered the question. “Parkville, I guess. Off Loch Raven.”
I thought I knew the place he referred to. “OK, so you met Danny’s brother. Did Danny come along?”
“He was there at the beginning,” Chris said. “He left before we got down to business, though. It was like he . . . didn’t want to be involved.”
It seemed consistent with my prior conversation with Danny Esposito. “Tell us about your dinner conversation,” I said.
“He introduced himself,” said Chris. “He didn’t tell me he was a mobster or anything, but I got a feeling it was something like that.” I saw Anna shake her head in my peripheral vision. I knew the question she wanted to ask and sympathized. “He said a business associate did things the old way and didn’t believe in technology. But if I wrote some ransomware—he didn’t call it that in a restaurant, but I knew what he meant—then the whole operation would be modern. He asked me if I would do it and offered to pay me fifty thousand.”
