Laugh or Death (Lexi Graves Mysteries Book 6)

by Camilla Chafer

  "Sure thing." Solomon held up his keys. "Do you want to take my car?"

  "No, I'll catch a cab."

  "And if Leo just happens to bump into..."

  I cut him off. "You don't have to say it. I'm not going anywhere near Leo Chandler and if he finds me, I'll run like hell."

  "Just get somewhere safe and call in the cavalry."

  "Is the cavalry you, or MPD?"

  "Same difference. Call one and the other will come."

  "Good to know I can rely on all of you." I kissed him again and waved as I exited, knowing he watched me sashaying all the way out of the office. I don't always sashay, but when I do, I do it brilliantly.

  Instead of calling a cab when I got outside, I paused on the steps to our building and called Lily. "What's happening?" I said. "Want to get a drink? I have so much to tell you."

  "I would, but I'm following asshole. We're heading down the street where the agency is."

  "My agency?"

  "How many agencies do you have? Yes, your agency. Oh, I see you. Hey!"

  "Pick me up!"

  Lily's Mini veered over to the curb and the door popped open. I jumped in and we pulled out with a screech.

  "He's still not doing anything interesting?" I asked.

  "He's moving," said Lily. "And we're following him. How was Greenacre?"

  "Confusing and disappointing. Leo Chandler is probably a serial killer."

  "It's always the cute ones."

  "I know. So depressing. So glad I'm not dating."

  "Me too. We have the good guys. We're lucky."

  "They have us. They're luckier."

  "High-five sister!" Lily high-fived me. "No one is dating this jerk, you know. He only has guy buddies."

  "Maybe he's dating one of his guy buddies."

  "That's very liberal and non-judgmental of you."

  "That's how I roll. Hey, he's making a left."

  "I got him." Lily made the left very discreetly, behind a Toyota. "I'm good at this surveillance thing. I've been getting a lot of practice. Hey, he pulled over. I'm going to slow down. You see where he's going."

  "He went into a cyber cafe," I said, having a good stare as we rolled past. It wasn't an elegant cyber cafe with leather sofas and expensive lattes, but more like a “park your butt in a plastic chair, pay your money, and nobody asks any questions.” I suspected they scrubbed their computer histories at closing time and didn't look over the shoulders of their patrons. I also doubted anyone got up to anything seriously illegal in there. I figured it was probably somewhere people logged into secret email accounts their spouses didn't know about, or extra-marital dating profiles, or browsed cat videos on YouTube. Since I very rarely got up to no good, I couldn't really fathom what people might do there that they couldn't do on their home networks. I voiced that thought to Lily as she circled the block and rolled to a stop further down the street.

  "Not everyone has home networks," she pointed out. "Remember when we had crappy jobs and we couldn't afford one either?"

  "No, because your parents paid for the Wi-Fi even though we had crappy jobs."

  "Exactly. We were lucky. Some people live hand to mouth. They can use these cyber cafes for an hour, and it's only a few bucks, not a huge commitment. Maybe he's checking his emails or looking for a job online."

  "You really think that?"

  "Hell, no. He's up to no good!"

  I laughed because I couldn't help it; and after a moment, Lily joined in. "How do we prove that?" said Lily. "We can't go in there."

  "Not while he's in there," I agreed, "so we wait until he comes out. Then we go in."

  "But how do we follow him?"

  "Call Ruby?"

  "No can do. She's tending the bar."

  "We either don't follow him and go in there instead, or we split up. One of us checks the computer, one of us follows."

  "I'm tired of following him. He needs to get a job, or go back to school."

  "Maybe he is getting a job. You just said he might be looking for a job online."

  "I was being nice. I don't believe it. Let's both check the computer. We're only going to follow him home anyway, and I can't spend another night watching him hang out with his buddy and eat pizza. Do I get pizza? No, because I'm in my car and no one will deliver."

  "Did you try ordering?"

  "Yes. No one will deliver to a car. Not even Luciano's, and they deliver anywhere."

  "I heard they don't only deliver pizza."

  "I don't know what that means."

  "It means they're a front."

  Lily frowned. "What for?"

  "Prostitution and drugs."

  "Really? Huh. You learn something new every day."

  "They make good garlic bread."

  "I definitely heard that before, but since they won't deliver to my car, I'll never know. Look, he's leaving. Hurrah. He's a real action man tonight. I hope he goes home. I hope he wasn't looking at porn. I hope... hey, Lexi! Wait for me!"

  Lily hurried after me as I took off for the cyber cafe. The sooner we got in there, I reasoned, the sooner we could grab his computer before someone else took it and messed up his search history. A bell over the door sounded as we entered, but none of the three computer users, nor the bearded man behind the desk bothered to look up. Beard didn't even blink when we approached him. After we stood there a minute, seeing his eyes glued to a comic book, he looked up wearily. "What?"

  "The guy who just left? Which computer did he use?" I asked.

  "Why? What's it to you?" He looked from me to Lily, but looked a lot longer at Lily. I didn't take any offense at that since bearded guys weren't my thing. Stubble, yes. Stubble was hot. Full beards that needed a conditioning treatment, no. Also, Lily was wearing a very low-cut top.

  "We need to look at it."

  "I don't remember," he said, returning his attention to his comic.

  I leaned in, lowered my voice, and pointed my thumb at Lily. "He's cheating on my friend and we want to find out with whom."

  He blinked, then snuck a look at Lily. "Really?"

  "Yep," said Lily. "I'm totally heartbroken."

  "You don't look heartbroken."

  "I'm internalizing it. Internalizing bad."

  "I still don't remember."

  I pulled twenty dollars from my purse and slid it across to him. "How about now?"

  "The one in the corner furthest from the window." I thanked him and stepped away. "Five bucks," he added.

  "I just gave you..."

  "Five bucks gets you thirty minutes online," he clarified.

  I huffed, but handed him the money. Lily gave him a hard stare and we both crossed to the computer. I took the seat in front, and she grabbed one from the neighboring station. The screen was blank so I popped the space bar on the keyboard and it flashed to life.

  "Get the browser history," said Lily.

  I clicked history and the list came up empty. "Damn it. They must scrub the list after every user."

  "Shame they don't bleach the keyboards." Lily folded her hands in her lap.

  Glancing at my fingers that were just touching the keyboard, I sighed, but got on with it. "They may have deleted the browser history, but I bet they didn't delete the cache."

  "Not at five bucks a pop," said Lily. "That's a lot of cash for thirty minutes."

  "Not that kind of cache. The computer cache."

  "I'm absolutely not understanding this so just do what you gotta do and I'll be impressed if it works out."

  After a few clicks, there was the unadulterated cache in front of us. "Did it work?" asked Lily.

  "Yep. This is what Kyle looked at in the ten minutes he was here. There's his email and a bar's website. I hate to say it, but you might be right about him looking for another job."

  Lily made a rude noise. "What bar? I might warn them."

  I clicked on it. "It's Bar One-Eighty. They're holding some kind of special night with a... get this... cash prizes! Ten thousand dollars to the winner paid in
cash! Five thousand bucks to the second place contestant, and two thousand to the third. There's a bunch of other smaller cash prizes too. This bar is giving out twenty thousand dollars tonight!"

  Lily leaned in, reading. "What do we have to do to win?"

  "I don't know. Let me check his email." I clicked the next link and his email popped up. He hadn't logged out of the system properly. There were several emails in his inbox, and judging by the random username, it wasn't his regular account. I clicked on the sent file and there was a message time-stamped for only a few minutes ago. I opened it.

  "BAR 180. Seven pm. This is the last one. Twenty grand. We're getting out tonight."

  "Holy shit!" squeaked Lily. "He's so busted. We're busting him!"

  "He hasn't done anything yet."

  "Oh, please!"

  "We need to be sure and it's..." I checked my watch. "This is planned to happen in forty minutes. We need to go now."

  "Do we ever!"

  I made a note of the email address so the police could check into it later and sat back. I missed something and I knew it. Who did Kyle email? I scrolled up, but the recipient's email was also a nonsensical line of letters and numbers. "Okay, let's say he's doing this," I said, keeping my voice low so only Lily could hear, "we don't know who his partner is. Also, forty minutes notice by email is bad planning for a theft." As I said it, I remembered my other case. The Hansons used message boards to communicate with Peta. The only thing was, they never said which one. What if I could get a message to her through that board?

  "I know one thing," said Lily.

  "What?" I asked, distracted.

  "The next bar we're staking out. Let's go!"

  Chapter Eighteen

  We parked opposite Bar 180 in downtown Montgomery. It occupied the corner lot and was quite large, with the first story all lit up and the second story dark. So far, there was no sign of our favorite gunmen, and I had to admit I was pretty disappointed. A takedown would have thrilled me right about now. It would definitely have taken my mind off a potential serial killer on the loose and his next victim in the wind.

  The bar appeared to be hosting some kind of fancy dress night given the number of dazzling dresses and big wigs. However, from our vantage point across the road, I couldn't make out who the patrons were supposed to be. It was very loud and Lily was singing along to a Marilyn Monroe number that was being blasted by someone inside the bar.

  "If we'd had longer to plan this, we could have dressed up too," said Lily as she drummed her fingers against the wheel. "We could have won that big cash prize."

  "I can't sing."

  "You can sing well enough to compete in there," she said as the Marilyn wannabe hit a bum note.

  "I can only concentrate on one thing at a time."

  "That's not true."

  "Tonight, it is. Tonight, my mind is focused on nothing but catching your thieves." I took a long look around. "Wouldn’t it be great if they got to it?" I added, thinking again about what we discovered on the computer.

  A tall pair of women teetered past us. One wore a red sequined cocktail dress. The other had a black-and-white, fifties-style dress with a pair of enormous heels. "Did you see the size of her feet? That's not natural," I commented.

  "Uh, Lexi, I don't think these ladies are actually ladies." Lily pointed to a woman stooping to pick something off the sidewalk. It looked like a wriggly, red ferret. The lady plopped the ferret on her hand and smoothed it so that it flowed past her shoulders. "They're all wearing wigs and have enormous feet..."

  It dawned on me. "We're at a transvestite club?"

  "I think the term is cross-dressers, but yeah, I think so."

  I paused. "Some of the dresses are really nice."

  "We definitely would not have won for our singing talent," said Lily, "but maybe our cheekbones..."

  We both stopped as Kyle's car cruised past with two men inside, their faces turned away from us. The car took a right at the end of the road and disappeared around the side of the club. "Showtime!" said Lily, her voice low. She glanced towards me, her eyes gleaming with hope. "That was cool. I sounded badass."

  I didn't want to burst Lily's bubble that she sounded less badass than perky, so I just nodded. "We're definitely in the right place."

  "You think they're going to do some kind of stickup inside?"

  "I think they'd be lunatics to try. Aside from Royal's restaurant and your opportunistic theft, they prefer a smash-and-grab. They are not going to run into a bar full of queens and..."

  Lily snorted. "A bar full of queens! That's, like, their collective name!"

  "Pay attention! They wouldn't risk running in there to grab the cash unless it's displayed in the bar; and I don't think it would be. They'll take it from the safe."

  "And the safe is..." Lily gave me an expectant look.

  "You run a bar! You should know this!"

  "Correct. I was just checking that you do. The safe would be in the..." Lily paused, waited, then frowned. "No, I've got this. It would be in the manager's office and that would be..."

  "Where we can't see it. Let's go around back." Lily flipped on the engine. "On foot," I added.

  "I knew that." The engine switched off and we both got out. I collided with a six-foot-four Diana Ross.

  "Cute dress, honey," she drawled in the deepest voice I ever heard.

  "Thank you," I said, beaming because a compliment is a compliment. "Are you singing tonight?"

  "Baby, I sing every night," she said, continuing on her way after blowing me a kiss.

  "I might host a cross-dressing night," said Lily as we walked across the street, mounted the sidewalk and followed it around the building. "They look like they're having fun. And drinking a lot. Fun and profits! My two favorite things after shopping, cocktails, staying in bed late, Jord, and solving crimes."

  "Jord sits pretty low down on your list," I observed.

  "Sometimes he's number one."

  "What's number one now?"

  "Solving crimes."

  "Me too," I said, "and cocktails are number two. If we solve this, I'm buying."

  Lily checked her watch. "Can I take a raincheck? We have to solve this before I meet Jord for dinner."

  "Keeping the love alive?"

  "Always."

  A service alley ran behind the bar, which was shrouded in darkness. Several cars were parked along it. We walked slowly and carefully in the dark. We didn't have to go far. The third car was Kyle's and it was empty. I tried a door. Locked.

  "Inconsiderate jerks," whispered Lily. "I don't see them anywhere."

  "We need to get closer to the bar."

  There were no lights at the back of the bar, only moonlight to guide our way. We moved past several dumpsters until we found an opening in the wall. A six-foot gate filled it, but when I pushed, it swung open on well-oiled hinges. Lily grabbed my wrist and I stifled a squeal.

  "What if they're inside?" she asked. "What if they're waiting for us?"

  "Did you tell them we're here?"

  "No. Did you?"

  "No. We're probably good." All the same, we proceeded cautiously just in case Kyle and his buddy jumped out and bashed our skulls in with a copper pipe. It was a nightmarish thought, but as I’ve often said before, I liked to err on the side of caution.

  The courtyard covering the back of the building was small, and judging by the cigarette butts littering the slabs, it was where people came out to smoke. There were two small windows, both guarded by iron grills screwed to the wall, and a plain fire door. The door, I noticed, stood open a couple of inches, just enough for the faint bass to vibrate through. Someone had wedged a small chunk of concrete in the way to prevent the door from shutting.

  "They're inside," I whispered to Lily as I pointed at the concrete.

  "Let's call the police." Lily's cell phone screen flashed on. She covered it with her hand and the light dimmed.

  "We don't know if they are definitely stealing the cash."

  "We
don't know they definitely aren't."

  "If we call the police, and they aren't, we'll look like idiots."

  Lily cocked her head to one side. "Yeah, I don't like the idea of this coming up at every family dinner for the next decade."

  "I don't want to go inside."

  "Me neither."

  We waited. I wasn't sure what for, but I thought it might have been to steel my nerves. Finally, when I decided we weren't going to get anywhere by being scared, I pulled the door open and gingerly stuck one foot, followed by my head, inside.

  Somewhere within the rear of the club, a shot fired and someone screamed.

  "Run!" I hissed to Lily as she bumped into my back and I halted in the doorway.

  "Did someone just get...?"

  Footsteps sounded heavily. I shoved Lily out of the door. "Run!"

  We pounded across the courtyard, inconveniently lacking anywhere for us to hide, and burst through the gate into the alley. "Behind the cars," I said to Lily as I headed for a big SUV, which made the perfect cover to hide behind. I rounded it and dropped into a crouch, only then, realizing Lily wasn't behind me.

  "Let's get out of here, man," said a male voice.

  "That wasn't how it was supposed to go down!" said another male voice.

  I dropped closer to the floor, looking underneath the SUV. I could see two sets of boots, but no Lily and there was no way to call her without drawing attention to myself. I could only be grateful that apparently, the two men hadn't spotted her. Yet.

  "Did you get it all?" one of the men asked.

  There was a rustle, then, "Yeah, I think so. Let's get out of here. Someone must've called the cops." The footsteps moved, then a car's doors opened and shut softly. The engine came on, but not the lights, before the car pulled out of the alley. I peeked around the side of the SUV and came face-to-face with Lily. Our mouths fell open and one of us emitted something high-pitched.

  "Don't scream!" whispered Lily.

  "Where were you?" I hissed. "I thought you were right behind me. We have to call the police and follow them."