One Dead Witness hc-3

by Nick Oldham

  She was feeling sore from her encounter with Sands. Physically and mentally.

  Her face smarted from the open-hander he had given her. The blow the base of her spine received when he’d dropped her onto the ground had jarred the whole of her body and her lumber region throbbed. The bump on the back of her head had transformed into a tender swelling the size of a ping-pong ball and was giving her a roaring headache despite the Anadin.

  And she was angry — deep down and all over. Why had she let herself get taken by surprise like that! She should have known what a sneaky, low-down bastard Sands could be — after all, hadn’t he been having an adulterous affair for several months? And why hadn’t she fought back? She was perfectly capable of it. And now, damnit, she was indebted to Henry Christie. For God’s sake, she could fight her own battles, didn’t need a man to come to her rescue.

  Danny sighed as she remembered the heavy figure of Sands straddling her and admitted to herself that she had been well and truly beaten. It was a good job Henry had come along, but (and here she thumped her pillow with frustration), she did not want to be beholden to anyone, let alone a man, even if he was a nice guy. The frustration turned to a giggle as she pictured Henry dancing about, holding his sore fist… and then the laugh faded. A feeling of dread seeped into the pit of her stomach when she recalled Sands’s body out cold on the garage floor… and she knew it wasn’t over.

  She rubbed her eyes, squinted at the digital alarm clock. 4.03, the green figures informed her. Time to get up in just over three hours’ time.

  She cursed, gingerly resettled herself in the bed, eyes wide open, all senses switched on full blast.

  ‘ Sleep… sleep… deep sleep,’ she willed herself rhythmically.

  From outside she heard a noise which sent a shock right through her. A kind of scraping that put her teeth on edge. Metal on metal. Then a cracking, snapping sound, like a dry twig being broken in two.

  She listened hard. Her body tensed up.

  Silence.

  She relaxed, breathed out, certain she was hearing things that were not there.

  It came again, the scraping.

  She flung back the duvet and shot out of bed in an instant, crossing the room, drawing the curtain back just far enough to see out. Her car was parked in the short driveway in front of her house, partly obscured by a tree in the garden.

  She put a hand over her eyes to eliminate the glare from the nearby street lamp.

  Nothing. No movement. Bugger all.

  Just imagination. Or cats screwing.

  She uttered an expletive, let the curtain fall back, trotted to the 100, then dropped wearily back into bed.

  At 4.10 she closed her eyes and was immediately asleep.

  At 4.11 a full house brick, expertly aimed, exploded through her bedroom window, shattering glass with a sound like a shotgun blast. It powered its way past the curtain and landed on Danny’s pillow, only inches from her face, showering her with glass.

  A particularly nasty shard sliced into her left cheek.

  ‘ This is nice, Steve, I’m really impressed,’ Myrna nodded approvingly. She heaped another forkful of the excellent Arroz con pollo into her mouth and licked her lips after she had consumed it.

  ‘ Yeah, and it’s also owned by Mario Bussola,’ he said, adding begrudgingly, ‘and every damn cent we spend in here goes from our accounts into his. We are helping to support his lifestyle.’

  ‘ Aw, it don’t stop it being nice though,’ Myrna said through another mouthful of chicken. ‘We might as well get something good out of this before we all lose our ‘jobs,’ she concluded wickedly.

  Kruger frowned, unhappy at being unable to relax. Had the circumstances been different he could really have enjoyed the evening and no doubt have chanced it with Myrna, even though she was strictly a ‘no no’ on his list as far as women were concerned — i.e. married and employed by him. A very uncool combination.

  He tried to chill out and soak in the atmosphere. It wasn’t easy, not least because of the radio under his left arm, gun at his back, earpiece in his ear and transmit button stuck to his palm.

  The Club Montoya was a nightclub situated in the basement of the Hotel Montoya. The hotel was perhaps one of Bussola’s finest establishments, if not the finest of the seven hotels he owned. It was also one of South Beach’s hottest locations. The hotel was Art Deco done to death, all the rage with the young business end of Miami, with four themed restaurants, two pools, a sports complex and very, very superior-priced rooms.

  The nightclub, open from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. every day, and soundproofed from the hotel, had become very much the place for everyone who was anyone to be seen in. Gays, Latinos, cross-dressers. Even white male heterosexuals.

  It had a dozen bars and two restaurants, one of which clients had to skirt through to enter the nightclub proper. This was the one in which Kruger and Myrna were sitting. It served expensive, but highly palatable Cuban food.

  Kruger hoped the information given by Felicity about her wayward husband’s whereabouts ‘sometime tonight’ was good gen. Otherwise it would be a wasted evening and Kruger wanted to spend as little time and effort on a case which would bring his company nothing in terms of money or kudos.

  He hoped to end it tonight by jumping onto Bussola’s trail, finding him with a piece of unofficial ass, reporting the news back to Felicity, together with some evidence, and then — zap! — calling it quits.

  Kruger was enough of a realist, though, to know things were unlikely to turn out as smoothly as that.

  ‘ You told hubby you’re dining out with the boss tonight?’ Kruger smiled.

  ‘ Of course. He’s away in Salt Lake City for a couple of days at a seminar. We spoke on the phone earlier.’

  ‘ Is he very liberal?’

  ‘ He trusts me, Steve.’ She leaned forwards, elbow points on the table, and rested her chin on her thumbs. ‘He knows I would never be unfaithful with you.’ She stressed the last two words with a light sneer.

  Kruger raised his eyebrows. But before he could respond with a feisty remark…

  ‘ He’s here!’ Their earpieces blurted into life, making them both jump out of their skins.

  It was Kelly’s voice, broadcasting from the back of the comms van parked a little way down the street outside the hotel. She commanded a good view of the entrance of the Hotel Montoya through the lens of a high-powered night intensifier camera mounted in the side of the vehicle. She was sitting in the back of the van in a cosy little room with a bank of miniature TV screens and radio equipment. ‘He’s getting out the back of his car… accompanied by another guy and two bodyguards… they’re going into the hotel… they’re out of my line of sight… now!’

  ‘ And coming into the foyer,’ Jimmy Armstrong said, taking over the commentary from his position half-hidden by a huge marble pillar near the reception desk.

  ‘ I hope the two assholes with him are not the two who were with Liss yesterday, the ones who kidnapped me,’ Kruger mused, thinking out loud. ‘If they are, we might as well call it off right now. Damn, shoulda thought about that.’ He wasn’t too concerned about Bussola slapping eyes on him because Kruger believed the mobster had never seen him before.

  ‘ Now he’s headin’ towards the club entrance,’ Jimmy continued. ‘It’s his usual firepower,’ he added, referring to the bodyguards, meaning they were Bussola’s regular minders.

  Kruger sat upright. He reached out, gently took Myrna’s hands and held them across the table. He looked into her bright brown sparkling eyes.

  ‘ Kruger received,’ he said into his radio. He tried to give Myrna a look of love tinged with lust.

  Myrna eased herself into her role. She leaned further forwards, making the scenario seem more intimate, but also giving herself a good, unobstructed view over Kruger’s shoulder to the club entrance.

  Bussola, A.N. Other, and two bodyguards came into sight.

  ‘ Here he is,’ she whispered to Kruger, fluttering her eyelids. ‘Got
him,’ she said into the miniature mike which was positioned, secured by tape, between her breasts. In her present lean-forwards position, Kruger could see it there. By angling his head forwards a few more degrees he could have spoken into it. He caught his breath and concentrated on the task in hand.

  ‘ He’s coming towards us,’ Myrna warned, seeing that Bussola and his small entourage had entered the club.

  Myrna lifted an arm languidly and placed a cool hand around Kruger’s neck. She scratched him naughtily, drew his face a little nearer to hers, then suddenly pulled him even closer across the small table so that her mouth was next to his ear and his mouth was only millimetres away from her cleavage. He became very hot.

  She pretended to whisper love things into his ear.

  ‘ He’s only feet away now,’ she said. ‘I confirm he’s with another guy and two goons.’

  Kruger was content to receive the information from his present position.

  ‘ Now walking around the perimeter of the restaurant.’ Kruger felt Myrna’s big soft mouth brushing his ear. Her voice became very husky. Her lips tickled him as they moved. ‘He’s right behind you, babe,’ she murmured. ‘I didn’t realise he was such a big, fat bastard, and the guy he’s with is enormous too… I could reach out and touch them

  … now he’s gone past… approaching the entrance to the Tropicana Bar.’

  As Bussola and company went through the doors to the bar, a roar of loud music boomed out.

  ‘ And now I’ve got him,’ Dale Armstrong confirmed from his position inside the bar.

  Myrna leaned back and pushed Kruger gently away.

  He blew a long breath and loosened his neck-tie, sadly aware that he had been as close as he would ever get to Myrna’s breasts.

  ‘ Enjoy, big boy?’

  ‘ Not in the slightest,’ Kruger lied, wiping his forehead with his napkin.

  Danny held the flannel tightly against her bleeding cheek. Though some thirty minutes had passed since the brick had crashed through the bedroom window, she was still shivering with shock.

  She had dressed in a tracksuit with her dressing-gown over it and wrapped tightly. Even so she was very cold and numb.

  She eased the flannel away from her face to inspect the damage in the mirror. No doubt about it, medical treatment was required. The cut was only about three quarter’s of an inch long, but was quite deep. She prayed it would not need stitches.

  Blood oozed out of it immediately.

  She replaced the bloody flannel, stared blankly at herself, thinking what a god-awful-tired-weary mess she looked.

  ‘ Dan?’ came a voice from the foot of the stairs. It was the night-duty Patrol Sergeant, Lesley Elvin, one of Danny’s best friends. She, along with two of her PCs, had attended Danny’s 999.

  ‘ Yep?’ Danny came out of the bathroom and teetered unsteadily down the stairs towards Lesley who waited at the foot, a concerned expression on her face.

  ‘ You okay, honey?’

  Danny nodded, knowing she wasn’t.

  ‘ You look as white as a sheet.’

  ‘ I’m okay,’ she insisted.

  Lesley shrugged. ‘A twenty-four-hour glazier will be here soon to board up the window. Once it’s done I would not recommend you sleep in that bed until you’re sure all the glass has been removed… and you need to go to hospital to get that cleaned up. There could be some glass in it.’ She pointed at Danny’s face.

  ‘ I don’t think I’m very likely to go back to bed now. I’ll probably drop in to Casualty before work.’

  ‘ Do you want a lift? I can arrange one.’

  Danny placed a hand on her friend’s shoulder. ‘No, it’s okay. I’ll see to it myself.’

  Lesley’s personal radio crackled, requesting her to attend the custody office at Blackpool to assist with processing some prisoners.

  ‘ Gotta go, hun.’

  ‘ Yeah, thanks.’

  ‘ The lads’ve had a good look around… can’t see anyone. I’ll tell ‘em to keep a passing eye on you until we go off-duty at six, though I doubt there’ll be a problem.’

  ‘ Mmm.’ Danny sounded unsure.

  ‘ You got something to tell me?’ the Sergeant enquired. She was usually pretty intuitive with things like this.

  Danny shook her head.

  She went to the front door with Lesley, offered her thanks, watched her walk away up the driveway past the Mercedes. Something in the light, the shimmer of the trees against the street lamp focused Danny’s eyes on the front radiator grille of the car. For a moment Danny could not see what it was that made her look. Then she groaned out loud and rushed to the car.

  Lesley spun round.

  ‘ The bastard!’ Danny uttered.

  She stared down at the top of the radiator grille and the jagged stump of metal upon which the famous three-pointed star used to proudly sit. It had been snapped off.

  Danny’s mouth tensed angrily. Anger boiled up inside her.

  When she checked the rest of the car, she found what she feared. A track of scratches had been gouged down both sides, from front wing to rear, making some sense of the noises Danny had heard earlier.

  Kruger thought it pointless to leave Kelly outside in the comms van whilst everyone else was inside the club and they knew the precise whereabouts of their target. Accordingly he teamed her up with Jimmy Armstrong and, as a couple, they came into the club after a lengthy period of queuing.

  Dale played the part of a single, unattached male, targeting various females throughout the evening. It was a part he played well.

  Meanwhile, Kruger and Myrna danced the night away. He began to enjoy himself, despite sweating profusely because he was unable to remove his jacket for obvious reasons.

  Keeping tabs on Bussola was easy.

  The mobster, his fat friend, and the two bodyguards occupied a table in one corner of the room, constantly being attended by waitresses. The two minders remained detached and alert, whilst their boss and his buddy were fawned upon by a stream of sexily-clad women, who mostly looked like hookers. The two men spent some time on the dance floor, gyrating as rudely as their bulk would allow with a number of these women who all seemed to be very impressed with them.

  Kruger hazarded an educated guess that if Bussola was playing away at all, it was probably with prostitutes or women who were only interested in screwing him because of his exalted position in low-life. Having been fucked by the biggest mobster in Florida was probably quite a thrill, Kruger assumed. They were probably not any sort of threat to Felicity, other than by way of sexually transmitted diseases.

  Myrna enjoyed herself too. This was the first time in years she’d been to a nightclub and although it was work which brought her here, she decided to get full value.

  She moved slinkily to the beat. So slinkily that Kruger often found himself transfixed by her mesmeric gyrations. The sweat poured down from her scalp, temple, neck, shoulders and cleavage, making Kruger’s tongue flicker in anticipation of being able to lick it off her body.

  So near yet so far.

  It was just as well he was a man of high moral values, otherwise he could easily have been driven by lust.

  Just before two o’clock, Bussola and company made a move to leave.

  Kruger and his employees left quickly, discreetly, ahead of him.

  Kelly returned to the comms van; Dale and Jimmy went to a car each. Kruger and Myrna got into Myrna’s Lexus.

  They had only a short wait.

  Bussola’s stretch limo drew up to the hotel entrance. A doorman opened the rear door in readiness. The two bodyguards appeared ahead of Bussola, checking.

  Moments later the man himself emerged from the hotel. His friend — or whoever the hell the other guy happened to be — was at his shoulder. They squeezed into the limo and the bodyguards got into the front seat next to the driver.

  ‘ No women,’ Kruger observed. ‘He’s had plenty of opportunity to pick one up.’

  ‘ Perhaps he’s faithful after all
,’ Myrna suggested.

  ‘ And lions don’t have big teeth.’

  The limo pulled smoothly away into the night.

  Kruger’s team began to follow.

  Despite the early hours, tailing the limo through Miami was an absolute breeze because Miami is one of those cities which never sleeps and the amount of traffic about was phenomenal. Kruger found the experience exhilarating, though he would have preferred to have been behind the wheel rather than passenger. It was too many years since he had been involved in mobile surveillance. He’d almost forgotten how much fun it was. He was also pleased to note that his people had following techniques off a ‘T’ — because he’d taught them all he knew.

  The limo worked its way out of South Beach, down to MacArthur Causeway, over the Miami Channel and into the city. From there it meandered south. For a few blocks Kruger thought the tail had been spotted, particularly when the limo executed a series of V-turns, sudden stops and block-loops. The team held its nerve and after five minutes of these anti-surveillance manoeuvres continued its journey. Bussola was obviously going through the motions as he probably did on every journey he undertook. However, they were moves that a good following team should be ready for and act accordingly.

  The limo hit the Latin Quarter and eventually landed in Shenandoah where it stopped outside a parade of rundown shops and offices. Jimmy Armstrong just happened — to be the eyeball at the time and the rest of the team, following his instructions, parked discreetly in an arc 200 to 500 metres away, but not in visual contact with the limo — which was intensely frustrating for all concerned. They had to rely totally on Jimmy’s commentary.

  ‘ It’s like some sorta shop,’ Jimmy said over the radio, trying to describe the place where Bussola’s limo had pulled up. ‘Low rise… dunno… difficult to see properly without getting much closer.’

  ‘ Roger,’ Kruger acknowledged.

  ‘ Well, boss, what we gonna do?’ Myrna asked with a yawn. Since leaving the club her energy had dissipated and she needed her bed quite badly. Suddenly she felt her age.