“I already wish I’d never met you, Bob. But I couldn’t stand by and watch you hurt the girl. Not after I found her for you. Tell you what, why don’t you go home, and I’ll ship the gun back to Frankie.”
Bob started struggling again, and the effort caused him to groan. “Don’t do that man-the boss’ll think I’m incontinent.”
“I think you mean incompetent,” I said.
“What, you an English teacher now? Like I said, Darling, you’re a dead man.”
I adjusted the gun to a more comfortable position, and was thankful the area around the bar was not very well lit. It also helped that there was no traffic at this time. I cast a final glance in Bob’s direction, pulled my shirt out to cover the pistol, and headed after Destiny at a slow jog.
While I ran, I wondered if I my attacking Bob might have been a little irrational. After all, he said he wasn’t going to hurt Destiny. But I knew, deep in the hidden regions of my mind, if Bob hurt or killed the girl I might never recover. I was still shaken by the death of the young girl, Celine Stewart, on my last case.
The neighborhood around me quickly turned residential. The narrow street consisted of a mix of small houses, a few retail stores and several larger houses that had been converted into guest homes. I’m sure at any other time it would have been picturesque, but on this night it possessed the charm of a ghetto.
I glanced back to make sure Bob hadn’t managed to get free, and then picked up my speed. I’d seen Destiny turn on to Caroline Street and that’s where I headed. Those belts weren’t going to hold Bob for long, and when he got free he was going to be as pissed off as an angry boar.
I spotted Destiny walking about a block ahead of me and pushed to catch up with her. If she was trying to get away, she wasn’t moving very fast. She walked with a slight limp, and I suspected her feet were hurting her. Considering the height of the heels on the shoes she was wearing, I wasn’t surprised.
Destiny must have heard the slap of my shoes on the pavement because she picked up her pace. When she realized her heels would not let her move fast enough to get away from me, she spun around, let her weight rest on her left hip, and began to swing her purse in front of her. “What do you want?” she asked.
I pulled up in front of her. “We’ve got to talk.”
“Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate you getting me out of this mess. But if you think by playing hero you get the girl, you’re wrong. Right now all I want is to go home, grab a stiff drink, and climb into bed.” She put her hands on her hips and added, “Alone. I think I’m leaving Key West tomorrow.”
“Bob wants those diamonds back, and now he’s pissed at both of us. The belts I tied him up with aren’t going to hold him for long. He could be out there looking for us right now.”
Destiny glanced behind her. “He’s got the wrong woman.” She spoke without a hint of hesitation, and I suspected she was used to lying.
I shook my head. “No, he doesn’t, and he knows it. Bob’s seen your picture. I have too. I’m a private investigator. Frankie hired my firm to find you. I didn’t know he was going to have someone meet you with a gun. He said he wanted to talk to you.”
“You son of a bitch. You could have gotten me killed.” She started to swing her purse in front of her. I’d seen how she’d used it for a weapon, so I timed the arc of her swing, moved forward, grabbed her arm, and held her. Her breath was tinged with the scent of tobacco and alcohol, and a faint flowery perfume clung to her hair.
“We need to talk,” I said again.
She looked back down the street and I could almost read her mind, Bob or me. She hesitated, turned on her smile, and licked her lips.
“All right.” She moved closer to me, brushing my chest with hers. “But if you’re going to protect me from Bob, who’s going to protect you from me?”
“What do you mean?”
Destiny brought her hands up to my shoulders and leaned in, kissing me on the cheek. I felt myself turn red when she moved her mouth up next to my ear and touched it with her lips.
I’ve always been a sucker for strong, exotic women, and the feel and touch of this woman was making me dizzy. She was aware of the effect she was having on me, and she smiled before moving back half a step. “What I mean,” she turned the smile into a smirk and drew out her words. “Is that I can take care of myself.”
“I want to help,” I said.
This seemed to amuse her. She blew me a kiss, said, “I don’t need your help,” and brought her knee up between my legs.
I yelped, let out a groan, and when I began to collapse, she shoved me backwards. While I fought to control my fall, Destiny kicked off her heels and began running down the street.
I lay on the sidewalk fighting the pain and cursing my stupidity. I knew she was a fighter but I’d still let down my guard. I grunted, and forced myself to take several slow deep breaths before climbing back to my feet. Somehow, I didn’t think she’d get far running in her bare feet, and I took a perverse pleasure in the knowledge that if she kept running on the pavement, she would soon be in as much pain as I was.
I hesitated, grabbed her shoes, and started off at a slow walk, increasing my speed as the throbbing eased. Soon I was jogging along Elizabeth Street at a quick enough pace that I was sure I would intercept her before long.
I run almost every day, but the sharp burning feeling in my groin was working against me. It took me a few minutes to catch my breath and I was pleased to discover that running made me forget my discomfort. Three blocks later, in front of The Church of God of Prophecy, I caught up with Destiny.
She let out a loud sigh when I pulled up alongside her. “Why don’t you leave me alone?” she asked.
I held the shoes out to her as a peace offering. “I got you into this so I’d like to help get you out of it. Besides, you can’t go home.”
“Why not?” she asked.
“Frankie seems pretty set on locating you. Believe me, it’s not hard finding out where someone lives if you have an idea where to look. They know you’re in Key West for sure now. It’s only a matter of time until they dig up your address.”
Destiny put her heels back on while I watched. “You know you’re like a migraine headache. Just when I think I’ve gotten rid of you, there you are again. And each time you appear the pain gets a little more intense.”
She clenched her hands into fists, and her eyes looked wild and angry. At that moment, I was overcome with a ridiculous vision of her gouging my eyes out. I took two quick steps back. I was still walking funny, and I suspected that this woman might really be crazy enough to try and whip my ass.
“I was only doing my job,” I said. “You can’t go home though. You can’t take the chance Bob will be waiting there.”
She took several deep breaths, the anger melted from her face, and she let out a hoarse laugh. “This is the first time I ever kneed anyone in the balls. You went down like you’d been shot. You’re one of Tanya’s bartenders-Les something or other.”
“That’s Wes. Wes Darling.”
“Cute. So is this where you offer to take me up to your room and protect me? Because to tell you the truth, since I was fourteen every boy who’s offered to help me had one thought in mind. They wanted to help me all right. Out of my clothes and into bed. Is that the kind of help you have in mind, Wes?”
“A bit cynical, aren’t we?” I asked.
“A little trait my mother instilled in me at a young age.”
“Well I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I don’t have a room. I live on a boat. I guess going there is an option.”
“No it’s not.” Destiny’s voice faltered, and for the first time I saw fear in her eyes. “I don’t do boats. Understand? I mean, this is great. I’ve got about a hundred bucks in my purse, the clothes on my back, and I don’t have a credit card. For some reason banks don’t consider strippers a good risk.”
I nodded, and I did understand. The boat was out. There are plenty of people who fear boats and the wat
er, so I tried to soothe her worries. “We’ll find some place to hole up and…” My cell phone rang and I reached for it, but I thought I knew who was on the other end.
“I talked to Frankie,” Bob said, “and he’s not happy. Now that makes two of us. We’re the wrong two people to have pissed at you. So here’s the offer. Tell the broad to give me the diamonds and you give me back my gun and we forget all the bullshit. You live, she lives, and Frankie and I go home, done deal.”
I was pretty sure no matter what I did, Bob would be thinking about how much pain he could inflict upon Destiny and me before killing us. All I could hope to do was buy a little time, get the diamonds from Destiny, and deliver them to Frankie. If we were lucky, he’d be willing to trade the stones for our lives.
“You calling from a cell phone?” I asked.
“Yeah, a course. You think you can find a telephone on every corner anymore?”
“All right, I’ll call you back in a few minutes. I’ve got to talk to the girl.”
There was a moment’s silence. “You got fifteen minutes,” he said. “I don’t hear back from you, I come a huntin’. By the way, Frankie has arrived in town and my brother’s still around. You cross me, you cross them. It’s not just me you got to worry about.”
“I’ll get back to you,” I said, and hung up the phone.
“What does he want?” Destiny asked.
“You know what he wants.”
“I don’t have ‘em.”
“Frankie seems pretty sure you took them,” I said.
“So maybe I did. The bastard thought because he was paying for my services, he could rough me up anytime he wanted to. I figured the diamonds were my way out. The thing is-I don’t have them anymore.”
I raised an eyebrow and gave her a disbelieving look. “Are you telling me you lost Frankie’s diamonds?”
She shook her head. “No. I didn’t know how to get rid of a bag of diamonds so I found someone who could help me.”
“And how does a girl go about locating a fence to sell stolen diamonds in Key West?”
“I asked Elvis.”
“Elvis?”
She laughed. “You’re going to love this,” she said. “He’s my psychic.”
Chapter 6
I studied her face while trying to figure out if she was kidding. “Do you mean to tell me you gave the diamonds to a guy named Elvis who reads palms for a living?”
Her body stiffened and she pressed her lips into a scowl. “When you say it that way it sounds sort of stupid.”
“Sorry,” I said. “I mean doesn’t everyone go to a psychic when they want to fence stolen diamonds?”
“I’ve known Elvis for a long time and I trust him. It was a business transaction. He gets twenty percent. Besides, he doesn’t read palms. He doesn’t like to touch people. He’s got some kind of phobia about it.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “Let me get this straight. You didn’t give them to an everyday run-of-the-mill psychic. You chose a phobic psychic. It makes much more sense when you explain it that way.”
“You’re starting to piss me off, Darling. Stop treating me like a ditzy redhead.”
“Why would you go to a psychic to sell diamonds? It’s not the first place I’d think of. Why not a jeweler or a pawn broker?”
“What are you, nuts?” She asked. “You ever dealt with a pawn broker?”
“Can’t say I have.”
“Pawn brokers are crooks. You go in for a loan and they give you like nothing for whatever you bring in. I figured this was my one chance to make a big score.”
“How many diamonds are we talking about?”
Destiny hesitated, and then shrugged. “Twenty-five in all. The smallest is two carats; the largest is maybe three carats. They’re beautiful, and they’re mine. Tell you what, Darling. I’ll cut you in for ten percent if you can keep Frankie away from me. I’ll need your help for a couple of days. Just until I can get the damn things sold. After that, I’ll get my sweet ass out of Key West and he’ll never find me.”
I didn’t believe she was so naive as to think she could keep the diamonds, but I kept my thoughts to myself. I’d found her without any trouble. No matter where she went, Frankie would hire someone else to chase her down. In this day and age it’s almost impossible to stay hidden from someone who really wants to find you unless you’ve got the help of the government. Even that was no guarantee.
“I don’t think so,” I said. “Do you really not get it? There are a couple of angry guys running around out there who will kill you if you don’t give Frankie his diamonds back.”
“Maybe Bob was bluffing?”
“Did you see the teardrop tattoo on Bob’s neck?”
She shook her head. “I wasn’t looking at tattoos.”
“Well I did. It was a prison tattoo and the teardrop means he killed someone. That’s the one he brags about-it wouldn’t surprise me to learn there are more. And while we’re talking about what people will and won’t do, what makes you think Elvis won’t take off with your diamonds?”
“I trust him. I was raised on this island and I’ve been going to Elvis for advice six, maybe seven years now.” A smirk appeared on her face. “Besides, I told him I’d cut his balls off if he even thought about stealing from me.”
“You’re a real man-eater, aren’t you?”
“He believed me, I could tell.”
My fight with Bob had given me a headache, and I could feel it spreading to the back of my skull. I was having trouble concentrating, which is not a good thing when someone is trying to chase you down and kill you. “Do you have any aspirin?” I asked.
Without answering, Destiny reached into her purse and brought out a small green plastic bottle. “Two or three?” she asked, while she used her thumb to lever the cap off.
“Three.” As I took the pills from her, my phone went off. I popped the aspirin into my mouth and dry swallowed them, making a face when they stuck briefly in my throat.
“I never could do that,” she said. “I can’t swallow pills without water.”
“One of my many talents. Go ahead with your story, please.”
She looked down at my hip. “Aren’t you going to answer your phone?”
I considered answering and giving up Destiny. I was pretty certain getting rid of her would take away my headache, but when I reached down and touched the phone with the palm of my hand it stopped ringing. I took a deep breath and said, “I don’t think that’s such a good idea-do you? There’s only one person who would be calling me at this time of night.”
“Bob’s going to be pissed you didn’t answer it,” she said.
I reached behind my back and touched the gun. It offered a little security, but if Willie was lurking around in the area it might not be enough. The odds were Bob was armed again.
“Bob’s going to be more than a little pissed off if I tell him you gave Frankie’s diamonds to a psychic named Elvis.”
“Might be a good thing you didn’t answer it, huh?”
“You can bet on it,” I said. “Now we’d better get a move on. I thought I saw headlights down the street. We’ll talk to Bob after we get the diamonds from Elvis.” I looked over at her and added, “You do realize you’re going to have to give Frankie the diamonds, don’t you?”
Destiny picked up her pace and glanced in my direction. “He’s going to try to kill me if I don’t, isn’t he?”
“Have I been talking to myself all this time? Your only chance of getting out of this alive is if you give up the diamonds. Elvis hasn’t sold them yet, has he?”
“He still had them when I spoke with him this afternoon.”
I considered the implications while glancing up and down the street to make sure we were still alone. “So finish telling me why you decided to take the diamonds to a con man like Elvis.”
“You’re being an asshole again, Darling.” Destiny stopped and turned toward me. Her face was grim and I suspected her eyes were shooting death rays i
n my direction.
I placed a hand on her arm and urged her forward. “I’m sorry,” I said in an effort to keep the peace. “If you’ll tell me why you chose Elvis, I’ll be good.” I was anxious to keep her moving, and curious about why she’d done what she had.
“One time after I went to see Elvis, he got sort of chatty. Guys tend to get nervous and over-talkative with me. Anyway, he told me about some of his other clients. He mentioned one guy he sees who’s a mobster up in Miami and another who’s a drug dealer. There are also a couple of politicians who come down to see him from Tallahassee on a regular basis. I figured the mobster could tell Elvis where to go to sell a few diamonds.”
The pitch of Destiny’s voice, the click of her heels on the sidewalk, and Key West itself was beginning to wear on my psyche. I’m sure when Nick flew to Key West he expected it would be a simple job, like I’d expected when I agreed to help my mother. Now Nick was dead and I was being plunged deeper into a situation I wanted no part of. I had no idea who had killed Nick. I didn’t even know if his death had anything to do with the case.
To top it off, I’d been threatened, almost shot, and come close to being emasculated by a beautiful stripper on a dark street in the middle of the night.
Once again I was overwhelmed by the temptation to leave Destiny to her own devices, but I knew Bob was pissed enough to come after me anyway. I also was awash with the same sick feeling I’d felt when I screwed up with Celine. At this point I was pretty sure that if I didn’t help her, Destiny was going to end up dead too. I found it ironic. Despite my resolve, here I was right back where I swore I’d never go again. Paradise was turning into a jokester’s version of hell, and I wasn’t happy about it.
“If Elvis knows he’s dealing with a mobster or a drug dealer,” I asked, “why doesn’t he go to the police about them? It would be the responsible thing for him to do.”
“Don’t be silly. He’s like a priest. When someone tells him something it’s in confidence. I’d never discuss anything with him if I thought he’d blab everything we talked about to someone else. He’d be run right out of business.”
Key Lime Blues Page 4
