A Widow in Paradise & Suburban Secrets

by Donna Birdsell

  He couldn’t take a chance that Balboa would be a no-show.

  He popped the trunk latch for the Taurus and went around to the back of the car. Opening one of the large plastic containers, he removed a palm-size black box. Attached by a short wire to the box was a tiny camera lens, no bigger than the tip of a pen.

  He taped the box to the inside of a black Flyers baseball cap and threaded the camera lens through a small hole, until it rested on the brim of the cap. It was virtually invisible against the black-and-orange lettering on the cap.

  In the event that Nick didn’t show, Pete would at least have a video of the meeting. No audio, though. He didn’t want to get too close.

  He pulled the cap onto his head and adjusted the brim before setting up a small video receiver in the trunk and plugging it into a power inverter. He turned it on, and a picture of his trunk sprang to life on the screen.

  He turned his head this way and that, checking to make sure the receiver picked up a clean signal when he moved.

  When he was certain everything worked, he turned the recording device on and shut the trunk.

  He smiled. He’d heard about this. The brass ring. The silver lining. The light at the end of the tunnel.

  And in a case that had been nothing but a train wreck, that light sure looked good about now.

  He just hoped the light wasn’t attached to a train that was gonna hit him head-on.

  Chapter 19

  Monday, 1:15 p.m.

  Warden

  The parking lot was full. One-fifteen on a Monday afternoon, and the parking lot was friggin’ full.

  Who were these men who hung out at a strip joint on a Monday afternoon?

  She doubled back through the parking lot and around the rear of the Cat’s Meow, taking a detour through the alley where Pete had caught her leaving the club the day before.

  As she entered the alley, the back door opened and three men emerged. Two extra-large and one medium.

  The first extra-large was Benny the Brick Wall, sporting a black cowboy hat, a scowl and a healthy bulge beneath the too-tight gray sport coat he wore. The second extra-large was more monolith than a brick wall. He resembled a statue on Easter Island, broad and flat and seemingly chiseled out of stone.

  And the unfortunate medium being muscled along between them was—

  Oh, boy.

  It was Tom.

  As she drove past, Grace ducked down as far as she could behind the steering wheel. But like typical men, they weren’t looking at her, they were looking at the Beemer. That marvel of German engineering.

  She’d like to put a 540i onstage in the club and see which the boys were more likely to ogle—half-naked girls or thirty-seven hundred pounds of sculpted steel.

  Whether or not Tom recognized the car as hers was anybody’s guess. She imagined he was pretty nervous. But if he had recognized it, or her, he’d given no outward indication.

  She cruised past and watched in the rearview mirror as the three men disappeared into the building across the alley from the club.

  Damn. That couldn’t be good.

  She circled the lot again, forced to wait until a guy in a pickup truck lit a cigarette, dialed his cell phone and fiddled with the radio before finally giving up his parking spot.

  Heels clicking on the macadam, she hurried into the alley. Now the Cat’s Meow was to her right, and the building where Benny and his Easter Island friend had taken Tom was to the left.

  She debated what to do. Should she try to go into the Cat’s Meow and get help? But who would help her?

  Nick? He was the one who’d brought Tom here in the first place.

  Pete? She wasn’t even sure he was here. But even if he was, she doubted he’d be willing to mess up his investigation to save her ex-husband’s ass.

  And that left…

  Nobody.

  Nobody but her.

  Tom’s ass was in her hands.

  She shuddered at the thought. But still, she had to do something. After all, he may have screwed up royally but he was still the father of her children.

  She veered left, edging her way along the tan corrugated siding until she reached a narrow slit of a window, about chin high, that stretched for about three or four feet. She tried to look in, but the window had been covered with brown butcher paper from the inside.

  She made it to the door and pressed her ear against the cold metal, but she couldn’t hear a thing through the industrial-weight door. She rattled the door handle, which was, of course, locked.

  Now what, Nancy Drew?

  The answer was simple. Knock. But she needed something first.

  She searched the alley until she found what she was looking for. A small square of cardboard the size of a playing card. She slipped it down the front of her blouse and pounded on the door.

  No one answered.

  She pounded again, harder.

  Benny opened the door a half minute later, minus the cowboy hat but still wearing the scowl. The light of recognition flashed in his bulldog eyes.

  “Hi. Benny, isn’t it? I’m looking for Nick Balboa. Is he with you?”

  “No, he ain’t with me. Get outta here.” He started back in.

  “Wait! Can you tell me where Nick is?”

  “Not my turn to be his babysitter.”

  Nice guy.

  Benny disappeared and the door swung shut, but not before Grace was able to get the cardboard in between the door and the latch, so it closed but couldn’t lock.

  Now all she had to do was wait until Benny had gone back to whatever it was he’d been doing.

  As she waited, her bladder sprang to life the way it always did when she played warden with the neighborhood kids. Warden was a rather sadistic, preteen version of hide-and-seek, played in the dark with flashlights over a whole neighborhood block. One kid would be the warden, the others would be inmates who’d escaped from prison. The prisoners would have to hide and, once in a spot, could not leave that spot until they were found or called in for dinner by their mothers.

  Without fail, Grace would have to pee almost as soon as the game had begun. She’d sit beneath a shrub in torturous pain until she finally had to quit and run home.

  Wouldn’t it be great if she could run home right now? But that was, of course, out of the question. This time, she was the warden.

  So she opened the door and stepped into what appeared to be some sort of evil genius’s laboratory.

  Monday, 1:28 p.m.

  WWCAD?

  A machine that looked like an oversize roller-coaster car sat in the middle of the floor, surrounded by a low scaffolding platform. The row of fluorescent lights hanging above it were unlit; a noisy humming sound emanated from the thing, as if it were growling at her.

  Tall shelves that stretched from floor to ceiling, loaded with boxes of unidentifiable content, lined the long wall beside it. A chemical odor hung in the air, reminding her of the smell of her fourth-grade classroom after the teacher had handed out freshly mimeographed math quizzes.

  Just as stupid women in horror movies will do, instead of turning tail and running, she wandered farther in and let the door close behind her.

  The place was dim except for a flood of bright light spilling over the floor from an open doorway at the end of the wall. An occasional shadow broke the strip of light, and she knew from watching too many detective shows that that had to be where she would find Tom.

  She pulled off one of Tina’s shoes, testing the heft in her hand, slashing the spiked heel down in front of her like a butcher knife.

  Not bad. She could definitely put an eye out.

  She removed the other shoe and crept toward the light, avoiding the growling monstrosity in the center of the cold cement floor. After what seemed an eternity, she reached the door. She flattened herself against the wall and leaned in, peeking around the doorjamb.

  The room was a small office, furnished only with a couple of filing cabinets, a chrome-and-particle-board desk and a battered cha
ir on wheels. Tom sat on the chair, elbows resting on the desk, his head in his hands.

  His right eye was centered in a big red circle, which was sure to become a big black circle by tomorrow. A small trickle of blood had escaped his nose.

  It looked like Benny and his friend had wasted no time.

  Suddenly, the machine let out a big, long hiss and went quiet. The place turned eerily silent. The kind of silent where you think you might have died and just didn’t know it yet, and you wanted to make some noise—any noise—to prove that theory wrong.

  Grace jerked away from the doorway and stood completely still, her heart pounding painfully in her chest.

  “Finally,” Benny said from within the office. “I hate that friggin’ noise. Now, where were we?”

  “Our friend was gonna call his distribution center,” said the other simian. “Weren’t cha?”

  “No,” Tom said. “I wasn’t. I told you, I don’t have the authority to release large amounts of pharmaceuticals. Not without an order from a legitimate distributor and a signed release form from my boss. And I can’t get that. At least not today.”

  “Like I said,” Benny said, “every day Mr. Skobelov’s clients have to go without the valuable medication you supply, they suffer horrible anguish. Do you know what it’s like not to be able to bone your girlfriend?”

  “I could hazard a guess,” Tom said.

  He could? Grace idly wondered if he’d ever had trouble boning Marlene.

  Yuck.

  “And every day Mr. Skobelov’s clients can’t get the medication they need is one more day Mr. Skobelov’s reputation suffers. Which means you have to suffer. Understand?”

  “I get it,” Tom said. “But I’m telling you, there’s nothing I can do. The procedures have changed. I don’t have access to the stuff anymore. I’m afraid I’m going to have to bow out of this deal.”

  Benny and his friend yukked it up, as if someone had just told a joke about a rabbi, a priest and a duck going into a bar.

  “He’s gonna hafta bow out,” said Benny.

  “Yeah,” said the monolith. “Bow out.”

  “I’ll tell you what,” said Benny. “Why don’t I help you bow out.”

  Grace heard the wheels of the chair squeak and then a pounding sound she suspected was Tom’s head bouncing off the desk.

  She grimaced.

  “Zat a good bow?” Benny asked. “You like that?”

  Tom groaned.

  Grace moved into the doorway, brandishing her size-eight pumps. Unfortunately, the simians had their backs toward her, which completely blew her big entrance.

  Even more unfortunately, Easter Island had one of Tom’s legs in his hand. Benny raised a foot and stomped on it, and there was a sickening crack.

  Grace stumbled away from the door. Now would be the time to do something, wouldn’t it? Now would be the time to ask WWCAD?

  What Would Charlie’s Angels Do?

  Clearly, this situation called for a distraction.

  Where was Farrah Fawcett and her little white tennis skirt when you needed her?

  The sound of Tom’s groans making her increasingly nervous, Grace scanned the warehouse for something, anything, she could use to create a diversion.

  She circled the machine, locating a control desk on the far end with about sixty lit buttons and a network of switches and levers. The word Heidelberg stretched across the top of the machine in silver letters.

  Heidelberg? Why did that sound familiar?

  She figured one of the buttons had to turn the thing on, so she began pressing them.

  The machine roared to life with an earsplitting squeal, hissing and groaning even louder than it had before.

  Within seconds, Benny and Easter Island shot from the office. The looks on their faces would have been comical if they hadn’t been spattered with blood.

  The blood that, by rights, was hers to spill. And if she’d managed to restrain herself from spilling it through fourteen years of marriage and a venomous divorce, it wasn’t fair that they’d gone and done it.

  The two men ran toward the machine. Grace circled it, and when they’d reached the control panel she waved at them from the other end.

  “Hey. Over here.” Her voice echoed through the building.

  The simians charged, coming at her with speed that belied their blocky physiques. Before she could get out, they got between her and the door, trapping her inside the warehouse. With a sick feeling growing in the pit of her stomach, she realized her mistake.

  Faulty math.

  While there were three Angels, there was only one of her. On the show, the bad guys always had to split up to chase the Angels, but in this case it was two on one.

  Which, if she remembered simple fractions correctly, two on one gave her only half a chance to get away.

  Chapter 19.5

  Monday, 1:36 p.m.

  Lassoed

  Pete sipped his coffee and tried to keep his eye on the dancers, instead of on Skobelov’s booth in the back of the club.

  The Russian’s girlfriend had just left the table, so Skobelov was there with Morton, Ferret and Balboa, who had arrived about ten minutes ago. As long as he kept his cool and kept the camera trained on the Russian’s table, they’d have enough to prove the two were dealing.

  One of the dancers, a girl in a Wonder Woman costume, hopped off the stage and tried to lasso him with her gold rope. A bunch of young guys in the corner cheered. But Pete wasn’t worried about being noticed at the Cat’s Meow. He’d frequented the club for nearly six months now, getting to know the regulars and the girls, making himself inconspicuous by his habitual presence.

  That’s how he’d gotten to Balboa. And that was how he was going to nail Skobelov.

  Lou was seated at the bar not ten feet away from the Russian’s group, tucking dollar bills into a dancer’s G-string and, presumably, keeping tabs on what was happening.

  Lou had a tiny receiver in his ear that would pick up the sound from Balboa’s bug, so he could monitor the conversation. As soon as Lou gave the signal, Pete would call the cops for backup.

  Wonder Woman left him and climbed back up onstage, shedding the gold bustier she’d been wearing to reveal a set of red tassled pasties.

  Pete felt bad for the girls. Most of them were really sweet, just hard workers trying to feed their kids or pay the mortgage or send money home to their families in other countries.

  When Skobelov was taken down they’d all be out of jobs, since the Russian owned the club. But there wasn’t anything Pete could do about that. It was an unfortunate side effect of his work.

  But it wouldn’t be an issue after today.

  Pete had already decided it was time to retire. Get a civilian job, maybe start up a security consulting business. Buy that 1965 Mustang he’d always dreamed about.

  He moved the baseball cap slightly, lining up the eye of the camera with Skobelov’s big blob of a body.

  He was close now.

  So close.

  Chapter 20

  Monday, 1:39 p.m.

  Boneheads

  They were close. So close.

  The simians charged. Grace retreated.

  She flew past the open office door—where Tom lay on the floor, groaning—and around the perimeter of the building, desperately searching for another way out of the warehouse.

  Benny and Easter Island split up, coming at her from opposite sides. Apparently, they weren’t as dumb as they looked. They understood division.

  She was trapped.

  She backed up against the shelves on the wall, groping for the tire iron that, according to all cheesy detective show scripts, should conveniently have been there.

  It wasn’t.

  The only things on the shelves were a bunch of boxes.

  If this were an episode of Charlie’s Angels and she was Jill Munroe, those boxes would conveniently be filled with knives, or marbles, or tiny goon-seeking missiles.

  They weren’t.

 
They were filled with paper.

  Easter Island was still chugging his way around the machine, but Benny was close. Too close.

  She had to do something fast.

  Grace couldn’t go right or left or down. The only way to go was up. She started up the shelves, but Benny reached her before she was out of range.

  He grabbed her ankle. She gave him a kick, drilling him in the temple with her high heel. He let out a squeal that didn’t sound like anything issued from a man his size.

  She reached the top shelf and wedged herself behind the boxes, crawling on her hands and knees like a hamster in a tube. She could hear Benny, and now the monolith, too, pacing beneath her.

  Okay, now what?

  She reached into one of the boxes and pulled out a handful of paper.

  She could throw it. Maybe cause a wicked paper cut.

  All right. No. That was ridiculous.

  She looked at the paper in her hands. Blue, with red circles. Familiar.

  Was it…?

  She squinted at it in the dim light.

  Damn. It was.

  Sheets and sheets of social security cards. There had to be thousands of them.

  And then she remembered what Heidelberg was. A company that manufactured printing presses.

  Somebody was making their own social security cards.

  Her stomach rolled. She didn’t want to see this. Didn’t want to know about it. She just wanted to get out of there and get some help for Tom.

  At the moment it seemed unlikely, considering the fact that she had roughly five hundred pounds of goon below her, waiting for her to come down.

  What she needed was the element of surprise.

  Closing her eyes, she said a little prayer. Then she pushed one of the boxes over the edge of the shelf with her shoulder.

  It landed with a thunk.

  She looked down over the edge to see Benny sprawled on the ground, surrounded by a pool of blue paper.

  Bull’s-eye!

  The monolith looked up at her, stunned.

  She let another bomb drop. It missed the mark but sent the goon scrambling for cover.