“How much time do I have?”
“I'm patient, although I do expect progress. We'll do an evaluation this evening. So, how was the food?”
I'd managed to eat about half of it. “It was more than I could eat.”
“I thought the eggs were dry. I need to talk to them. New team. Still on probation.”
Like me, I thought.
The driver took me home. He held the door as I exited.
The driver handed me a card with a phone number. “Mr. Noronha expecting results. Call when you get them or you need a life line.”
*****
It had been nearly twenty-four hours since I’d last slept. If it were up to me, I’d go to bed for the next twelve. But it wasn’t up to me. Noronha expected results.
I considered the problem while I changed. The living Santa and anyone else involved would be dividing the money and fleeing the islands, if they hadn’t already. My only chance was to find them before they left. But where? They could be holed up in a warehouse, or a condo or a cave. They had probably switched cars and ditched the disguises. The police would be tracking stolen SUVs and canvassing costume shops. They'd be grilling every poor guy who had entertained his kids as Santa.
They'd also be tracking the confiscated phones. If these guys were smart, they had ditched the phones. Had they also ditched mine? It was just luck that my phone didn't go into the same bag as the others. If they hadn’t found it yet, they'd find it when they divided the money and my shot at locating them would be gone.
I retrieved my other phone, the one I use for business, and opened the phone-tracking app. In a matter of seconds, a map of the North Shore appeared with a green dot marking its location. I didn't know if the phone was with them, only that it was on. It could have been ditched to throw me off, but at that point, it was all I had. I saved the map and wrote down the coordinates in case it went dark.
Tracking my phone reminded me of Gabe and his smashed phone. Why had Santa smashed it instead of confiscating it? Was there something important about it? Suddenly I felt the excitement, the juice I call it, when I catch a break in a case. I thought back to Gabe's clumsy pick up line and his attempt to recover. He was playing me, but to what end? To get into my pants or something else?
I recalled his other line, “You picked a lousy night to temp.” How had he known I was temping?
I called the hospital and asked about Gabe Lansdown, but he’d been released. Then I remembered his tweet. Had he posted his status?
A search of Twitter gave me the answer: no. His last tweet showed the picture of the Mai Tai on the bar top. The picture was sharp and clear, the drink slightly off-center. Noronha's cabinet was the central focus. The Mai Tai was Gabe's last tweet, but not his only tweet. The tweet before was also a picture. Of me. My backside, anyway, captioned “OMG Becky.” I was bending over, but, in spite of the caption, my butt wasn't the focus. The focus was the aluminum case in the open cabinet.
It was obvious to me that Gabe was the inside guy. He used Twitter to signal the location of the case and set the play in motion. I had to admire his cleverness. In using Twitter, the conspirators had no direct contact that could be used against them. Hundreds of people might see the tweet and think nothing of it. Only the conspirators would know its meaning. If my theory were correct, one or both Santas would be among Gabe's followers. But, as it turned out, I’d been wrong about Gabe. He was a social media guy. Trying to pick out the bad Santas from his hundreds of followers would take more time than I had.
*****
The green dot remained on the map, hovering, like the Star in the East, over a spot just off Kamehameha Highway near Malaekahana Bay. From the road, all I could see was the entrance to a narrow, crushed gravel lane that disappeared behind a stand of trees heading towards the beach. My phone was somewhere down that lane. I turned in at the next opening, which happened to be a public beach access, and drove to the end.
A handful of surfers rode the waves. I parked behind a pickup decorated with surf decals and set off towards my missing phone, with its sister in my hand and a Sig Sauer in my waistband. I used the trees for cover and kept the beach in sight.
I covered the quarter mile from the beach access to a small compound of three buildings in about fifteen minutes. The buildings were best described as shacks, though they were neither temporary nor run down. They were weathered but sturdy retreats for surfers or fishermen. I couldn't see any sign of life in the two shacks nearest me, but the shutters were raised at the farthest shack, which had two vehicles—an extended-cab pickup and a Camry—parked behind it.
The Camry was empty. Not so the truck. Santa Claus sprawled across the rear bench seat. His eyes were open but not twinkling. Judging from the amount of blood under him, he was probably alive when they switched vehicles, but couldn't have lasted much longer.
I texted the map of my location to Noronha's driver, though I didn't hold out much hope of help. He was an hour away in Honolulu.
My position by the vehicles put me downwind of the shack and I could clearly make out voices from inside. Shotgun Santa and Gabe were engaged in an argument.
Shotgun Santa said, “You told me make it look good, so I made it look good.”
Gabe said, “I didn't tell you to break my fucking collarbone.”
“You couldn't roll with it? Anyway, what're you bitching about? An injury like that gets you off the hook. You're the vic.”
A new voice joined the argument. “You two shut up. What are you gonna do about Bobby? You can't leave him out there.”
The voice belonged to Irene Ao.
Santa said, “You got any bright ideas?”
“Dump him in the bay,” Gabe said.
“Are you crazy?” Irene said. “What do we do when he washes up? What then, huh?”
“Okay. Maybe I'll take him up Kaena Point,” Santa said.
“When?” Irene asked.
“Soon as I get my share. Are you gonna open the fucking case?”
I moved up alongside the shack to a spot next to the open window. From there I could see a small section of the interior. Irene stood over Noronha's case, which sat on top of a card table. The shotgun lay next to the case. Gabe paced in and out of view.
Irene said, “This isn't the same case he used before. My key won't work.”
“So what do we do?” Gabe asked.
“I know this guy who can open anything,” Santa said from somewhere in the back of the room. “I'll take it to him.”
“You're not leaving here alone with that,” Irene said.
“Okay, we all go.”
Gabe said, “We can't leave Bobby's body out there. Someone could find him. You have to get rid of him first.”
“I'm not doing anything without my share,” Santa said.
“Nobody's going anywhere until we get this figured out,” Irene said.
I hoped their impasse would stretch until Noronha's driver arrived. If he were coming, that is. I had no assurance he'd come, but I was willing to wait. I did not want to take on all three. Better to keep an eye on the case until help arrived.
I opened the message app to text the driver again, when my phone rang. Not the phone in my hand; my phone in the shack. The ring was muted but clearly distinct.
For an instant, all movement and conversation came to a halt. Then Irene disappeared from sight and reappeared in a second, holding a black bag. She turned the bag over and spilled the contents—money and my phone—onto the floor.
Santa said, “It's the bartender chick's.”
Irene shouted, “You were supposed to get rid of the phones.”
“I forgot this one, okay? I didn't see you helping me get Bobby into the truck. I was in a hurry. Somebody could've seen us.”
“Well now somebody could be tracking us,” Irene said.
“The bartender chick? I doubt it.”
“Irene's right,” Gabe said. “We have to get out of here. We'll take the truck and Bobby and find some other place to open
the case.”
I had to act fast. My car was too far away. If they got on the road, I wouldn't be able to follow and then I'd be in a bigger hole than when I started. Noronha would still want his money and I'd have lost my tracker. I ducked under the window and quietly mounted the porch.
The front door was closed. Behind it, Gabe said, “C'mon, help me get this money up.”
Santa said, “What about the chick's phone?”
Gabe said, “Kill it.”
“You got it.”
I heard the sound of a shotgun shell being chambered and a boom that I knew sent Siri to A.I. heaven. A pistol shot followed the shotgun blast.
Irene cried, “What did you do?”
“Change of plans,” Gabe said. “It's just the two of us.”
I kicked the door open and followed my Sig through. Irene stood near the card table and Gabe stood in the center of the room. Gabe's right arm was in a sling. He held a handgun in his left hand. Shotgun Santa lay on the floor with the shotgun under his hand. He no longer looked like Santa. He wore a t-shirt and shorts. He'd lost the beard and the wig. He wasn't moving.
“Drop the gun, Gabe!” I shouted.
“Ava,” he said. “What are you doing here?”
“Drop it!” I shouted again.
He dropped the gun.
Irene said, “What do you want?”
“Gunslinger wants his money and you owe me for a phone.”
“Sorry about the phone,” Gabe said.
Irene said, “I worked hard for that man and he gives me nothing. The money's mine.”
“You brought me into this and you weren't even going to give me a cut. You wanted me to take the fall.”
“So you want a cut?” Gabe asked. “You go outside and come back in without the gun, okay? A rewind, like last night.” Gabe flashed me a smile that had probably worked on other girls and might even have worked on me in different circumstances.
“I was wrong about you,” I said. “You are a loser asshole. You've had your last rewind.”
“All you want is the money?” Irene said. “Then take it.” She flipped the card table over.
I had to jump back to avoid the table and the heavy case. Gabe threw himself at me and together we fell back against the wall. Momentum was Gabe's only advantage and I quickly turned it. I hammered at his broken collarbone until he screamed and backed off enough that I could chop down with my gun butt on his other collarbone and break it. Gabe screamed again. I kicked him away from me and looked for Irene. She had gone, but bad Santa had risen to his knees. He jacked a shell into the shotgun, which he trained on me. Suddenly a shot rang out simultaneously with a small hole appearing in Santa's forehead. Santa collapsed.
Noronha's driver came in. “Put your gun away.”
“You got here quick.”
“I followed you.”
“You followed me?”
“Lucky for you. Mr. Noronha, he had faith you'd find 'em.”
“Where's Irene?”
“Running down the beach. We get her in time.”
Gabe said, “Irene's the one. This is her plan.”
I stepped over to him. His right arm had come out of the sling and both arms hung uselessly at his side. I backhanded him across the face. It spun him around and he stumbled into the wall and slid to the floor.
“What was that for?” he asked.
“OMG Becky,” I said
*****
I brought the case to Gunslinger Noronha at the same food truck as in the morning.
“It's all here,” I said. “Even the money from the cash register.”
“I never doubted you Ms. Rome, though I'd have preferred a cleaner solution for Lansdown.”
We'd left Gabe on the floor of the shack with his belt around his ankles, helpless without the use of his arms. The driver had wanted to kill him, but I talked him out of it. I'd pursuaded Gabe he was better off copping to robbing the bar and killing Santa and not mentioning Noronha's money.
“His prints on the gun and GSR on his hands are enough to convict him,” I said. “He'll take the sentence and count himself lucky.”
“I may have to remind him of his good fortune from time to time.”
“Irene got away.”
“You needn't worry about Irene, Ms. Rome. She's on a surfing safari. Darren, too.”
“Oh,” I said.
Noronha counted out three hundred dollars. “Six hours of bartending plus tips,” he said. He added another hundred dollars. “Holiday bonus. I like to reward my employees for good work.” He counted out a much larger stack. “Six hours of private detective service.” He counted out another stack. “Bonus for results.”
He pushed the money towards me. “We're square, Ms. Rome.”
Before I could take it, he said, “Wait. I almost forgot. You went into my private stock.” He took a hundred dollars from the bartending stack. “I have to hold you accountable for that.”
I fucking hate Christmas.
*****
Mark Troy is a former Peace Corps Volunteer who grew up in St. Louis, MO. He attended the University of Hawaii for graduate school. He now lives and works in central Texas. Mark is married with two sons and two grandchildren. Mark's first novel, Pilikia Is My Business, was nominated for a Shamus Award for Best First PI Novel. He is the author of The Rules, a novella available as an ebook, and The Splintered Paddle, a novel from Five Star Publishing coming in June 2014. Both feature Ava Rome.
Jimmy Jazz (a Joe Geraghty story)
by
Nick Quantrill
Nick is quite a successful PI writer with his Hull-based story and another example of how a PI story can be based in the UK as well as in the USA. I was pleasantly surprised when he asked me to include his story.
I tried to make myself comfortable on the settee. I watched as Aimee-Leigh Dench paced the room, drawing harshly on a cigarette. She was fifteen years old, if that. I thought about asking her why she wasn’t at school, but it wasn’t any of my business. Times were hard and I wasn’t in the business of judging people.
She was wearing a light-coloured tracksuit, her hair pulled tightly back and scraped into a ponytail. The flat was untidy, a mess of mismatched cheap furniture. It was on the twelfth floor of a tower block. An old man was sitting in the corner of the room, angled away from me, concentrating on the television. I was sure there was something familiar about him, but I couldn’t be sure.
Aimee-Leigh jabbed her cigarette in my direction. ‘The bastard’s taken granddad’s medal,’ she said, ‘and I want it back.’
I told her to slow down, hoping she’d take a seat and talk to me in a more rational manner. She continued to pace the room with the cigarette in her hand.
She turned to look at me. ‘I am fucking calm.’
The old man turned the television up. He was watching a property renovation programme, a daytime repeat. I stood up and steered Aimee-Leigh in the direction of the kitchen area at the back of the flat. If you were being generous, you’d maybe call it open-plan living. As it was, it just meant the stale smell of food and rubbish wafted around the flat. The brown wrapping paper from last night’s takeaway sat on top of a kitchen unit. It turned my stomach. I just wanted to find out what she wanted so I could get out of the place. ‘Start again,’ I told her. ‘You said something about a medal?’
‘I want you to find my granddad’s medal. My brother, Jimmy, nicked it, the thieving bastard.’
I glanced across at the old man. He was still engrossed in his programme. ‘What type of medal are we talking about?’ I asked her.
She dotted the cigarette out into a dirty mug and shouted across the room. ‘Something to do with rugby, isn’t it, granddad?’
‘I played with your old man,’ he shouted back. He didn’t take his eyes of the television. He’d been listening after all. I knew there had been something familiar about him from the moment I’d walked into the flat. I moved across the room and turned the television off, trying to get a good vi
ew of him. I recognised him. He was an old Hull KR teammate of my dad’s. ‘You played on the wing?’ I said to him, it all slotting into place.
‘Fast as fuck, I was,’ he said, smiling. ‘No one could catch me.’
I nodded. ‘I dare say.’
‘You probably don’t remember, but I used to go in your old man’s pub a fair bit, usually on the way to Craven Park. Proper ground that was. Not like that dump they play in now.’ His laugh turned into a hacking cough. ‘Wouldn’t be seen dead in there now, not that they’ve got any time for the likes of me.’
‘What medal are we talking about?’ I asked him, getting us back on track.
‘My Challenge Cup one.’
I knew the one he meant. Hull KR’s first trip to Wembley in 1964. They’d lost, but it had been one the proudest days of my dad’s life. My brother, Niall, had hold of the medal for safekeeping.
Aimee-Leigh stood next to me, holding out some crumpled notes. ‘I’ve only got £50 at the moment.’
It wasn’t the figure I’d agreed with her on the phone, but I took the money off her all the same and smoothed it out, not wanting to ask how she’d come by it. I took a good look at a photograph of her brother before leaving.
I drove away from the flat and headed for a shop I knew on Spring Bank. Although the area had seen an influx of Arabic businesses; greengrocers, barbers and restaurants, the pawnbroker’s shop had remained the same. The bell above the door chimed as I walked in. Sid was an institution in the city. He made the bulk of his living through house clearances. If you weren’t fussy or skint, Sid could kit your home out for next to nothing.
I heard Sid before I saw him. The man was the heaviest breather I knew. Even walking from the back room to the till left him struggling for breath. I waited for him to take a hit on his asthma pump before saying anything.
He put it away, smiled and pointed to the mobility scooter in the corner. ‘Finally got myself one.’
‘How much did you pay for it?’ I said before stepping forwards to shake his hand. ‘It’s good to see you,’ I said.
The Shamus Sampler II Page 8
