Special Agent Booker

by Mimi Barbour

  “It happens. So she approached you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Told you to be careful. Alia’s smart and trained. Hope you took care of tracking her.”

  Libby giggled. “Hey, you take me for a newbie? Of course I did. Slapped that cute little ole GPS device under her fender last night with my own hands. She’s not getting away from me, honey.”

  “Good. It’s why I pay your agency the big bucks.”

  “Hey, we’re the best. Our PIs always deliver. You can depend on it.”

  “Fine. But can I depend on you?”

  “Does the sun come up every morning?” Libby giggled again as she hung up.

  Jackass!

  Chapter Eighteen

  Sloan eased off when he saw Les’s glare. It wouldn’t do any good putting both his and Roy’s backs up against the wall; they’d pull together and shut him out. He knew Les would always go along with Roy, protect him. As a boy, Sloan had seen it numerous times.

  It was one thing for Les to taunt the other man, push him till he was furious, but they all knew his teasing behavior camouflaged an abiding loyalty; a fierce respect and affection.

  No way could Sloan fight that. But he knew how to get to Les, and at this point, he’d use any weapon in his arsenal.

  “Look, let’s go in the coffee room and take a break. I’ll lock the door so we won’t be disturbed, and you’ll both come and we’ll talk. I think it’s time for some explanations, right, Les? You know me. You know I couldn’t go on now that I’ve found out this much.”

  Les looked at Roy, waiting. Roy walked toward Sloan. He stood in front of him, staring at him, pleading, a look of love in his eyes that brought tears to Sloan. He knew the old man was begging him to stop.

  To pretend he hadn’t heard what they’d said was what was being asked, but he couldn’t do that. He never flinched, nor did his look waver. Finally, he sensed that his beseeching stare did the trick.

  Roy’s shoulders slumped and his head dropped till his eyes only saw the floor. “You won’t let this go, boy, will you?”

  “Not a chance.”

  Again, Roy shot Sloan an imploring look. “Not even if I ask you to?”

  “Sorry. I’d do most anything for you, Batman, you know I would. But not this. If you care about me at all, don’t ask me to.” Sloan used his nickname for Roy, one he’d started as a little boy when Les and Roy would play with him – Les was Superman, and of course, he’d play Superboy.

  Roy looked at Les. “Go lock the door. I guess it’s time.”

  A short while later, all three men had coffees and were sitting around the same table they used every day.

  Sloan knew they were stalling, so he opened the discussion by saying, “Who wants to start?”

  Les cleared his throat. “First, how about you tell us what you heard.”

  “You know already. Roy listened in while Dad talked on the phone. That’s as good a place as any for you to begin, Roy. Tell me everything you remember about that conversation.”

  “It’s a long time ago.”

  “And yet it hasn’t left your mind. Quit stalling.”

  “You know how proud Tommy felt about you being a cop? Well, when you switched over to the FBI training, his bragging went to a whole new level. He told everyone about his boy being one of the good guys.”

  “Quit playing me, Roy. Tell me what you overheard.”

  “I was getting to it. Either let me tell it in my own way or we’ll forget about it. I need to lay the groundwork.”

  Sloan heard Les snort, but his glare shut the other man up before he could start riding Roy. “Fine. Just get to it.”

  “That morning, sitting right here having morning coffee before we started work, Tommy told Les and me that you two had talked the night before. He said you’d shared a bit about a drug trafficking case you couldn’t crack. Your frustration had gotten to him and he didn’t know how you could work one file for months, slowly gathering evidence when you had no doubts about the perpetrator. It boggled his mind.”

  Les broke in. “It’s because that dude never took his time at anything. He’d go full bore at whatever life put in his way, and never mind the consequences.”

  “You’re right. Anyway… he’d planned to start working the Ashtons’ Cadillac that morning when suddenly, he cussed and jumped up. We’ve always wondered if it was something you’d said the night before that had light-bulbed and sent him muttering to check the car. By the time I’d cleaned away the coffee stuff and followed to see what was wrong, he’d ripped off the passenger door panel and found something.”

  Roy held his hand toward Sloan to stop his question before he could form the words. “Don’t ask me what. I don’t know. But whatever it was, he became incensed. Then he checked in the glove compartment, and ran into the office to make a call. When I heard him yelling into the phone, I stopped to listen.”

  “What exactly did he say?”

  “He basically said, ‘Tadeo, you bastard, you’ve worked for Kroller for years. He’s always driven a blue Caddy just like the Ashtons’ vehicle that was brought into the garage recently. I found your stash in the car, same place you always keep your shit. Now you better come and get that effing car out of my garage and take Kroller’s business elsewhere, or I’ll tell my FBI son about his uncle and the gang he runs with.’ Then he smashed down the receiver so hard I thought he’d broken it for sure.”

  “What happened next?”

  “A customer caught me and started yakking. Before I could get away, Tommy had taken off. It was the last time I ever saw him alive.”

  Les added, “He stopped by my corner and said he needed to look after some personal shit. He wouldn’t be back that day.” Les hunched his shoulders, a weary look replacing his normally sardonic expression. “He looked pissed, which happened sometimes. Anyway, I had a job to finish that morning. Besides, you know your ole man. He’d get in that souped-up GTO of his, act like a stunt-car nutcase and get a speeding ticket out on the interstate. Then return all smiley and feeling better. So… I backed off.”

  Roy added sadly. “And he crashed.”

  “And you never told me any of this because…?”

  Les looked at Roy first and, after getting his go-ahead nod, he continued. “Because Roy figured the accident had nothing to do with the threat your dad had made on the telephone—”

  Roy cut him off. “And because I forced Les to keep quiet about it. We had no proof that someone killed him. Why put you in danger?”

  Sloan got that Roy was trying to protect him; hadn’t he done that all his life? So he turned to Les. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  “I hadn’t seen Tommy that upset since Wai left. It might have driven him to buy that son of a bitchin’ bottle they found in the car. He could have drunk the half that was missing. The coroner said that he’d had enough in his system for him to be impaired. Roy’s right, kid. We had no proof of anything. I only got suspicious when he came to pick up the car.”

  “Who came?”

  “Your mother’s brother… Tadeo.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Stunned, his body so tight it felt like one slight nudge could shatter him, Sloan didn’t even try to hide his fury. “My mother’s brother? How come no one ever told me I have an uncle?”

  “Because him and your old man didn’t see eye to eye. Look there’s a lot about your mother you don’t know.” Les refused to look at him.

  “A lot? Fuck, man. I don’t know anything. None of you musketeers were forthcoming about her. I learned early on to stop asking questions and just accept that you three were my family.”

  “We did the best we could, Sloan.”

  Sloan reached out to Roy and squeezed his arm. “Don’t take that the wrong way, man. No kid had a better upbringing than I did. How many other brats had three dads hovering around, and you playing the mom role when you sensed I needed it, or the buddy role when it seemed appropriate? All my friends thought I was the luckiest bastard in the
world.”

  “And you? What did you think?” Les had a shrewd look in his eye and Sloan knew he expected the truth.

  “I was a kid. What the hell did I know?”

  Roy broke in. “We saw the poster you always had hanging in your room of the Hawaiian princess, leis around her neck, long hair streaming in the wind and her muumuu flowing. Every time I saw that picture, it stunned me just how much it looked like Wai. When you were little, you told me the girl was your mom, and we never argued with you. If it made you happy – it was fine with us.”

  “The day I spotted the poster, Dad stopped next to it, stunned and shaky; he said the girl looked just like Wai. I made him buy it for me so I had an image of her. That night when he hung it up, he finally talked about her, the one and only time. He stared at the image, said she’d been a loving girl who’d had so much to give, but she couldn’t be tied down to only one man. I was too young to understand what he meant then. But as I got older, it always stayed with me. I guess because there wasn’t any censure in his voice, only love, I never held it against her that she’d left. The three of you more than made up for her absence.”

  Roy wrapped his arm around Sloan’s shoulders and squeezed, a loving gesture he made often. “She was lovely, son, inside and out.”

  Sloan caught Les’s eye and saw how Roy’s words had touched him. Staring, unable to look away, he dared Les to finally admit the truth about their family. About the strange life of three men and one boy living together in a rambling place attached to the garage where they worked.

  Secrets had always simmered underneath their everyday normal routine, but Sloan had been brought up to respect everyone’s rights to their own memories and to stay out of where he wasn’t invited.

  So questions hadn’t been asked and no one had volunteered any information. When a sensitive kid perceived that the people in his life wouldn’t take kindly to demands, he stopped making them.

  Les began slowly, inching his way forward. “Your mother was as beautiful as your poster. Everyone loved her.”

  Sloan knew his voice came out rough but he had to know. “Roy did. How about you, Les? Did you love her too?”

  A long silence followed with Les leaning down, clutching his hands between his knees; hands that shook visibly.

  Roy broke in. “Tell him, Les. It’s past time.”

  “Look, kid, we all loved her.” He waved at Roy and then at himself. “I met her at night school where I used my drawing talent to learn how to actually paint. She took classes too because she worked with fabrics, designs on materials, had a dream of starting her own line of clothing. In those days, Wai wasn’t ready to settle down, she was wild and free. She dazzled me, and I brought her here to meet my two friends, Tom and Roy.”

  Roy took over. “The three of us had worked our passage across from ‘Frisco and had been shoved in the same stateroom. After Les and Tommy stopped the squabbling, we settled in and became kind of attached. Decided that once we arrived, we’d open a garage in Honolulu and go into business together.”

  “That’s how you three started Booker’s. I often wondered.”

  Les answered. “Hell, we fit together as if it was meant to be. With Roy’s mechanic skills, he could handle the repairs. Tom could do the body work and eventually became skilled at the drawings, and I could do the finishing and detailing. Worked like a hot damn. Tom had the only bankroll, so he invested in the property and we started building up the business, gaining a reputation, and we became known for not cheating or bullshitting our clientele.”

  Sloan had grown up knowing about Bookers’ reputation. “Tell me about my mother. What happened?”

  Les stood and began striding from one end of the room to the other. “We all happened, is what happened. Your mom was a free spirit, she couldn’t be tied down. She loved people and took to Roy because of his gentle spirit – her words, not mine.”

  Roy added. “She loved to ride the waves and talked Les into surfing with her. Even though she’d surfed all her life, he taught her a lot.”

  “Guess she liked doing more than riding the waves—”

  Roy came back at Sloan like a tornado touching down. “You don’t get to talk about her that way, son. She wouldn’t hurt a fly; she caught them and released them outside. She never meant to break our hearts. She just loved everyone. But in the end, when she found she was pregnant, she chose your dad as the father and wrote his name on your birth certificate. Once you were six months old, she disappeared and we never heard from her again.”

  Les added, “She’d seen the way we all fawned over you. Hell, the three of us were like fucking love-sick idiots all over one tiny baby.”

  Roy nodded. “It’s true. She knew we’d never let you go. In the end, after she disappeared, Tommy always blamed Tadeo for her desertion. He’d found out that Tadeo had given her the money to move to San Francisco, to start her own business. Tommy went to Tadeo for her address, laid a beating on him, but the man wasn’t sharing. Tom went after Wai but he never found her. Came back to his new baby and we all carried on.”

  “So… which one of you bastards is my father?”

  Chapter Twenty

  Roy looked to Les, leaving him to answer. “Does it matter?”

  “Christ! Of course it matters.”

  “Well, it never did to us. Wai made up her mind she wanted Tommy to be your father, and so Roy and me decided we’d honor her decision. Far as we’re concerned, you’re Sloan Booker, Tommy Booker’s son.”

  Sloan looked from one to the other and saw Roy nodding in full agreement. He couldn’t help himself. “I’m taller than the old man – more like your height and build, Les. And, I have a lot of your mannerisms, Roy. Only thing I thought I had from Tommy was his drawing talents, and I could have gotten those from Wai.”

  Roy looked pleased, almost superior, as he raised his eyebrow toward Les, who glared and then said, “You’re the spitting image of your mom and her side of the family. You have her island eyes; your brows are full and slanted like hers were. You have her bloody personality too. Dedicated and fixated, you don’t give up, and she was like that, knew what she wanted and went after it… no matter what.”

  “You’re talking about her as if she’s dead.”

  Roy piped in. “When she left, we knew she’d never come back. She had a dream to follow, made a name for herself. About ten years ago, we found out she was killed in a car accident. We never did see her again.”

  Though Sloan had just discovered facts about a mother he never knew, the news of her death made his heart lurched crazily. He gripped his hands together, his shoulders slouched. “How did you find out?”

  Les shrugged. “You can find out anything you want to on the fucking Internet nowadays. She kept a low profile, but her designs eventually became very popular. You wanna know more, look her up. She used the name Wai Sloan.”

  “She chose my name.”

  “Yes. Said it stood for ‘warrior’.”

  “Did she eventually have another family?”

  “Not that we know of. But more than likely, she did. Your mother was a loving woman. I can’t see how she’d have remained single. Did you want us to look it up for you?”

  “No. What I want to do is talk to my uncle Tadeo and find out what the hell happened on the day Tommy got killed.”

  “Oh, for crissakes! You mean on the day your dad got killed.” Les made a point, one he meant for Sloan to accept.

  “Whatever.” Sloan narrowed his eyes and waited for the explosion. He didn’t have to wait long.

  Both Roy and Les stood, both glared just like they had on the day the cops had picked Sloan up for smoking pot when he was thirteen. That day, all three of his dads had surrounded him, hands on hips, and stared him down. He’d never smoked the shit again.

  Roy tried placating, calming the tension. “Sloan, we agreed. And you got no say. Tommy Booker loved you and dedicated his whole life to raising you right. He was your father.”

  Sloan stood and fa
ced them. “Looks to me like all three of you dedicated your lives to raising me and I’m grateful. Don’t ever think I’m not. But this time you’re not gonna stop me. First, I’m gonna find out if Tommy was killed, and if it’s the last thing I ever do, I’m gonna catch the bastard who murdered him.” He stomped away and faintly heard Roy’s groan.

  “Why’d he have to say it like that?”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Sloan headed to the agency office, his reinstatement coming at the perfect time because he’d have access to their data banks and other facilities that made getting information so much easier. He intended to find out everything he could about Tadeo Kealoha, his uncle.

  First he stopped at Jack Harrison’s office, schmoozed his secretary to find out if the AD was free and then knocked on the door. “Hey, boss, you got a minute?”

  Jack pushed the papers to the side of his desk, settled back into his chair and crossed his right leg over his left knee. “Sure. I had it on my agenda to call you in today, so this will save me having to do that. What’s up? You look rattled.”

  Sloan slumped in the chair across from his former boss and tried to figure out how to start without sounding like a man on the edge.

  Jack beat him to it. “Did Don get the equipment to your place? I know you’ve decided to use the sunroom for the stakeout, and he was going to set up the monitors, the long-lens camera and bring the binoculars before Al and her kid showed up. That way, if Kean sees the stuff, you can pretend to have a star-gazing hobby or some such thing.”

  “No problem. Don’s coming early tomorrow before the barbecue, as far as I know. You’re right. We wanted to get organized before Hawkins and her son arrive later.”

  “So what is it then? You look riled. I hope you’re not backing out of Operation Relatives.”

  “No, nothing like that. I just got a shock and I’m still trying to process it. Look, there’s a chance my old man, Tommy Booker, was murdered and didn’t die in the car accident as we all thought. I want to do some digging and I need your permission to use the facilities here, get the guys researching on an old case Don and I were working on at that time.”