BOOKER Box Set #2 (A Private Investigator Thriller Series of Crime and Suspense): Volumes 4-6

by John W. Mefford

  Britney’s voice from just behind me. I wondered how much she’d overheard. The last thing this operation could withstand was her vindictiveness rearing its ugly head.

  She leaned her hands on the island, creating a cleavage wave.

  “Hey,” Sean responded, lifting his eyes for a quick second.

  “A bottled water, or maybe something stronger?” Her eyes shifted between me and Sean.

  “I could use a bottled water after my long walk, the humidity and all,” Sean said.

  She took a bottle from the fridge and set it a couple of feet in front of him, exchanging a few more glances in our direction. It seemed like she was about to speak, but instead she turned and ambled to the bar and poured herself another shot of rum.

  “You sure you should have a third?”

  She paused with the decanter halfway to the glass, a smirk at the corner of her mouth.

  “Ever the protector, huh, Booker?”

  “I want the mission to go well, and if you’re stumbling all over yourself, we don’t have a chance.”

  She turned and put a hand on her hip. “I’m not a machine, you know. I just need something to take the edge off,” she said, swirling the brown liquid in her tumbler. “You do realize what you’re asking me to do.”

  “Uh…yeah.” Wasn’t it obvious?

  “I have to pretend to want a man who repulses me, who’s hurt a member of my family.”

  “I get it.”

  “Do you? We don’t know what it’s going to take to get Amador to open up. What if I’m asked to…?” She brought a hand to her face.

  While I could understand her anxiety, her preemptive drama seemed overblown. “We’re not asking you to sleep with the guy. We just know he has a soft spot for women, especially American women. You said Juan is on board with you doing this, right?”

  A stiff nod of her head, although my eyes were drawn to her straw-colored hair framing her face. Similar to the sensation of smelling rain in the air, my senses could recall the fragrance in her locks. It had been intoxicating.

  “Despite what you might think, I don’t welcome the opportunity to cheat on my fiancé.”

  She was right. I did think the opposite, but drawing her into an emotional tug of war wouldn’t help us or Esteban. “Okay. I believe you.”

  Squinting ever so slightly, she said, “I can see it in your eyes. You think I’m nothing but a conniving, murderous slut.”

  Even after all these months, she could read my mind.

  “Your words, not mine.” I could see Sean hunched close to the counter, toying with his gadgets, obviously staying clear of the fray. “Does it really matter what I think? You hired me to find your fiancé’s son and bring him home. This is only a means to an end. But if you don’t want to do it, we’ll see if we can come up with another idea.”

  She paused, her eyes wandering across the aqua and black granite. “I know how much danger Esteban is in. It crushes me to see Juan every day. He’s wilting like a flower with no water.” Her shoulder muscle rippled as she raised her hand. “I would screw that Amador asshole in the middle of the baseball field if it would bring that boy home to his father.”

  “Point made,” I said casually, checking over my shoulder to ensure Bolt was preoccupied by the mindless TV program. Or was I only trying to divert my eyes and thoughts to anything other than Britney?

  “Okay.” Sean muttered one word, then cleared his throat. I could see Britney’s neck coil back just a tad, her eyes again playing ping pong between Sean and me.

  He continued. “We need to figure out a way to get this contraption here attached to your clothing.”

  Shuffling to the opposite side of the island, Sean held out his hands as if he were a high school kid trying to pin a corsage on the girl with a knockout figure. Britney just stood there, her lips turning up at the corners.

  “Have at it, Sean.” She looked my way and winked.

  I just shook my head. She was the queen of making people feel awkward.

  “Since this is black, it should blend in with your outfit,” Sean said, his eyes looking for just the right place.

  Britney brought a finger to the middle of her chest, the bottom of the V cut out of her dress. “How about there?” She beamed a Cheshire-cat grin.

  Sean moved his hands closer to her chest, then paused. “Do you mind if I put it on? I’m not trying anything.”

  “A true gentleman. They’re all yours.”

  His head did a double take on her answer, then he completed the task in about two minutes.

  “That’s not going anywhere. Let me test it.”

  Pulling out an iPad, he tapped a small box on the home screen, but not before I noticed a picture of a beach as his home-screen wallpaper. He plugged in a pair of earbuds and stuck one in his ear.

  The screen went black for about five seconds. Suddenly, it flicked on, and it seemed like we were looking into a mirror since the camera was staring right at us.

  “Cool.”

  “We need to test the audio and a bit of distance. Can you go into your bedroom, maybe even your bathroom and shut the door? Then speak quietly so I can set the volume levels.”

  Britney walked out of the room just as Bolt invaded our space.

  “What’s the plan, Mr. Booker?”

  “Put your dance shoes on. We’re going clubbing.”

  14

  The scent of fresh St. Augustine grass clippings hung in the thick, nighttime air. I could hear a hooting owl perched in an overgrown tree off to our right while a muted thumping bass reverberated in my gut.

  The odd combination of sensations actually seemed to match the pattern of experiences in Santo Domingo. Eclectic might fit. That’s a term Britney, a would-be interior designer before she escaped and became an international fugitive, might use.

  Sean put one earbud in his ear and handed me the other as we sat on a park bench, Club de Python just on the other side of a low bank of white-flowered shrubs across the street. The tablet was hidden behind a newspaper.

  “When do I get to listen?”

  Bolt leaned over the back in between both of us, a fat purple lip still impeding his ability to speak clearly—not that a fat lip would ever slow down his motor mouth.

  “You’ll have your chance once Booker heads into the club,” Sean said.

  “You do know that I’m really the best person to go into the club, right?”

  Sean and I traded stares.

  “You don’t have trust in your little buddy? I’m hurt,” he said with no conviction, his hands covering his heart.

  “Trust isn’t the issue, Bolt.”

  “I don’t know the drinking age in the Dominican, but I doubt it’s fourteen,” Sean said.

  I flicked a ladybug off my knee, feeling the linen texture of the gray pants I wore. At the last minute, Sean and I had decided it would be best if one of us could observe the scene from within the two-story club. As if she expected as much, Britney directed us to a closetful of clothes that fit me perfectly. She said they were for Juan, whenever they stayed closer into town. We seemed to be about the same height and weight, so it made sense. But why did my Britney radar go up?

  Over my objection, Britney insisted on handpicking my outfit—the gray linen pants and jacket and a white collared shirt, untucked. She called it classy, understated, while telling everyone who saw me that I was a player and belonged in the trendy club. I considered making a statement and selecting any combination of clothes that she didn’t want, but Sean used a hand signal to get me to back off. It was the right thing to do, given the alcohol buzz she was carrying and the related tension in the air.

  We watched the video come alive on the tablet, the camera shaking at the same cadence I could imagine Britney striding across the floor—undoubtedly all eyes peeled to every inch of her skin.

  “Looks like she’s turning toward the bar,” Sean said.

  Her arms leaned forward, then one waved off to the left.

  “You give me
a fancy suit, and I’m sure I could pass for an eighteen-year-old. No problemo,” Bolt said.

  “First, it would take two Bolts to fill up this suit. Second, you still have a baby face. It would take a complete makeover to turn you into a young man.”

  “You’ve got to realize that’s who these clubs cater to, guys and girls in their upper teens. At thirty-something, you’re considered old.”

  I paused, looked at Sean. “How old is Miguel Amador?”

  “Said in his dossier that he’s forty-six.”

  I glanced back at Bolt.

  “But he’s the man who stirs la bebida. The flow of the whole club will revolve around the man with all the power and money.”

  “You seem like you know a lot about how things work.”

  He opened his arms. “I’ve been living in the adult world for a few years. I have to know if I’m going to survive.”

  “Something tells me you’ll be visiting these clubs long before you should legally.”

  “I’m sure I could walk around to the back of the club building, convince the people to give me a job no one wants, like cleaning the restrooms?”

  Shaking my head, I almost chuckled at his pestering insistence.

  “Does he ever give up?” Sean asked.

  “I’m not sure he’s ever been told no,” I said, remembering my Samantha and the critical role parents played in kids’ lives, even those who thought they’d figured it all out—usually known as teenagers.

  “I’m standing right here,” Bolt said.

  “We know,” Sean and I said in tandem. A quick shift of our eyes, and all three of us nearly cracked up.

  I pushed up from my sitting position and put on my jacket.

  “You look like a cross between Lenny Kravitz, the American rocker, and the next James Bond.”

  “Thanks, Bolt. I guess that makes you Q.” I nodded at Sean.

  “Yeah, right,” he said, typing in a password of some kind on his tablet. “You should be able to hear me in the earpiece right about…now. Testing, testing, one, two, three.”

  I gave him a thumbs-up. “It’s all good.”

  “So I’ll be able to hear what’s going on around you. We can feed each other information verbally, although the loud music might make it tough for me to hear you.”

  “What the heck should I do while Mr. Booker is in there having all the fun?”

  Sean pulled a device from his bag and motioned for Bolt to sit on the bench next to him.

  “I’ll give you an earbud to listen to both Mr. Booker and Britney as long as you do some research for me.”

  “Research? I don’t do school.”

  Sean put the free earbud in his pocket.

  Bolt quickly conceded. “Okay, okay. School is back in. Tell me what you need.”

  I gave my cohorts a two-finger salute, then turned and walked beyond the confines of the park, across the street, and up a set of stone stairs to the entrance of Club de Python.

  My vision caught a bank of spotlights anchored to my right, randomly swirling across the dark sky.

  “Muévase a un lado para que otros clientes puedan entrar.”

  A man with greasy, slicked-back hair guided me to the side of the front door.

  “Mr. Booker, he wants to frisk you,” Bolt said in my ear.

  I held up my arms while one man watched, and the other did the frisking. Once finished, the frisker turned to his colleague and said, “No hay armas. Está limpio.”

  “He said you have no weapons and you can go inside.”

  I nodded and walked through the first of two sets of doors. The thumping music turned up a couple of notches, but I could tell that once I entered the last set of doors, my brain would struggle to function.

  “I think that greasy frisker would win the gold medal at the TSA pat-down Olympics, if they had such a thing,” I said to myself, knowing Sean and Bolt were on the other end.

  “Trying to keep all weapons out of a club that attracts criminals can’t be an easy job,” Sean said. I felt the urge to press my earpiece to hear better, but I didn’t want to draw any unwanted attention.

  “Something tells me they won’t be quite as strict when Amador shows up,” I said off to the corner.

  “Speak of the devil. Just spotted a line of black Hummers pulling up to the curb. I’m guessing he and his entourage slash security detail will be walking in shortly,” Sean said.

  “Roger that,” I said.

  “Roger. Yo no soy, Roger,” a man said, glancing at me with confusion in his eyes.

  Ignoring my own stumble, I flipped on my heels toward the club’s inside doors, nearly running over a woman almost half my size.

  “Su chaqueta.” A woman with a ponytail sticking straight up started pulling off my jacket. It felt like she was groping my chest.

  “Mr. Booker, she’s offering to take your jacket.”

  “Chaqueta, no,” I said, shaking my head.

  “Se pone muy caliente en la pista de baile,” she said with a toothy grin.

  “Chaqueta, no,” I repeated, not understanding why she continued to paw at me.

  “Mr. Booker, she’s saying it gets really hot on the dance floor. I think she’s really wanting to check in your jacket so that you’ll tip her later.”

  Having a translator in my ear gave me a little more confidence that I could navigate these waters.

  “Yo soy bueno,” I said, shifting toward the last gateway into the club proper.

  The moment the door swung open, I was met with a furnace blast of warm air. It felt like someone had been running a humidifier.

  Glancing around, the club could have been in Dallas or LA. It was large, had multiple levels, more lights flashing than at a five-alarm fire, and a set of cages perched from the ceiling, each containing one or more scantily clad women dancing their asses off.

  Wait…was that a guy in the cage nearest me? Hard to see through a haze of lights. I only saw boots zipped just over the knee, leather straps crossing this way and that, what looked like a policeman’s hat and a whistle. Suddenly a whip cracked the side of the cage, and the person stuck out his or her tongue.

  I steered clear of the cage, then found a path around the main dance floor lined by columns on either side. While I could already feel the perspiration trickling down my spine, I kept a hand in my pocket, casually scanning the scene. The dance floor was filled with couples, most probably under thirty years of age, but heavy on the cool factor. Over the years, the dance moves had changed, but they all included a heavy dose of hip gyrations, just a different brand. This crowd had mastered the art of hip swivels.

  Veering around a cluster of folks raising shot glasses to celebrate some important milestone, I kept my eyes open for Britney. After all, I was here, at least partially, to protect her. Or was it Amador I should be protecting from her? I showed teeth, laughing internally.

  At the back end of the club, I noted a hallway with black walls and a single spotlight that led to the restroom. In another shorter inlet, a swivel door was in constant motion, wait staff and bartenders going in and out, balancing drinks as if the glasses were glued to the tray. I took a curved staircase up to the second floor. People hung over the railing, peering down to the main dance area below, swaying to the nonstop beat of the music with drinks in their hands.

  I walked by one couple who had just toasted with two champagne glasses and proceeded to mug down, slobbering all over each other.

  “¡Consigan una habitación!” A John Travolta lookalike, circa the Saturday Night Fever era, blew by me, barking something at the couple.

  I could hear Bolt shouting in my ear. Turning my head, I said, “Say again?”

  “Get. A. Room. That’s what he said.”

  I rolled my eyes, then Sean spoke up. “Booker, I spotted Amador surrounded by a mob of bodyguards walking through the front door. Wearing a black short-sleeve T-shirt. Looks like he’s been hitting the weights.”

  “Did they frisk him?” I asked for fun, as I moved to t
he stairs and nonchalantly ambled down the staircase.

  “You kidding? You would have thought the Pope was approaching. They parted like the Red Sea, but still stuck out a hand hoping he’d touch it,” Sean said.

  Once downstairs, I positioned myself in the back, on the side of the bar, my eyes still searching for Britney.

  “People know he’s a drug smuggler.”

  “Hell, they know he’s done far worse, including kill people. A lot of people. Innocent people. A few might even know about his latest venture,” Sean said.

  “What business venture is that, Mr. Sean?” Bolt asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “That means it’s something.”

  “Not for your ears.”

  “Right, only when I’m older. Shit.”

  With no one in my space, I said, “Cussing doesn’t make you any older.” I sounded like a parent. Thinking about Samantha ever speaking that way was mindboggling.

  Suddenly, a ripple of heads turned toward the front. People kept dancing and drinking, but they were noticeably distracted. Excited smiles, “oohs” and “aahs” all around me. On the other side of the dance floor, I spotted a beehive of people moving across the floor. A smattering of applause and whistling, and people again trying to get a glimpse or, even better, touch his shirt or arm.

  “It’s the freaking Kardashian Effect,” I murmured.

  “What’s that?” Sean asked.

  “You know the game. These poor souls show up hoping to interact with a violent criminal, and for what? To try to join his group? To somehow find their fifteen minutes of fame latching on to a killer? They’re either desperate, addicted to the drugs he’s smuggling, or officially brain dead.”

  “Who’s that, the Kardashians?” Sean asked, his sarcasm evident.

  “Have you seen that Kim Kardashian?” Bolt asked with way too much fervor.

  Damn, that kid needed a parent. If he was going to fall for a girl, why couldn’t it be a member of the national soccer team?

  Bolt couldn’t let it go. “Have you seen her—?”

  “Put a lid on it, Bolt,” Sean said before I could.

  Teenagers.

  Just then, the DJ laid down a heavy scratch, momentarily taking the focus off Amador and his crew.