Third Strike: A Charlie Fox Mystery

by Zoe Sharp

  I’d aimed to arrive at the hotel late enough not to rouse my father from his breakfast, but early enough to catch him before the most convenient and obvious of the morning flights to the UK, just in case he was planning to cut and run.

  I eyed the same regal-looking doorman standing outside the front entrance and wondered if he’d still let me walk in unchallenged today, when I was in my motorcycle leathers.

  Hm, probably not.

  And just as I was debating my options, the mirrored glass doors to the hotel swung open and my father stepped out.

  My first instinct was to abandon the bike and go to confront him right there. I’d got as far as reaching for the engine killswitch when another man stepped out of the hotel alongside him, keeping close to his elbow. The second man was dressed like a cheap businessman—but a cheap businessman who has his hair cut by a military barber. My hand stilled.

  As I watched, my father slowed to glance across at the man with the buzz-cut, frowning. Uncertainty oozed from every pore of his skin like a sickness.

  Buzz-cut moved like someone bigger than his size, with an utter physical self-assurance that almost bordered on brash. He never broke stride, simply drew level and hooked his hand under my father’s arm. Even from twenty meters away, I saw Buzz-cut’s fingers pinch deep into the delicate pressure points on either side of the elbow joint.

  My father stiffened, first with outrage, then with pain. The shock of it knocked the fight out of him and he allowed himself to be swept forwards.

  My first thought, when I saw the way the guy carried himself, was that Buzz-cut must be a cop. He had a tense alertness, a slightly hunched stance, like he was constantly expecting someone to throw the first punch.

  But I didn’t think that even hardened NYPD detectives, would hustle someone of my father’s standing out of his hotel in such a way. If they’d wanted to break him down before questioning, then marching him through the lobby in handcuffs would have done it nicely. For some people, humiliation works better than a beating, any day.

  Just as Buzz-cut succeeded in propelling my father to the edge of the curb, a black Lincoln Town Car drew up smartly alongside them. It was identical to the vehicle my father had climbed into after his abrasive encounter with the news reporter only the day before, but they were too common in New York for me to read much into that.

  The driver pulled in fast, braking hard so my father’s companion had the rear door open almost before the car had come to a complete stop. It was smooth and precise and way too slick to be any kind of lucky coincidence. Buzz-cut must have called him in before they left the hotel lobby.

  Their timing impressed me. I’d spent too much time micromanaging exactly this kind of rapid inconspicuous exfil not to recognize expert work when I saw it.

  After that one brief show of resistance, my father allowed himself to be ducked into the backseat without further demur. I read the tension in his neck and upper body only because I knew to look. The doorman gave them a bored salute, oblivious.

  Buzz-cut took a moment to scan the street before he climbed in, and there was nothing casual about that highly proficient survey. I felt his gaze land on me and linger. Even though I knew the iridium coating on my visor meant he couldn’t see my eyes, I had to fight the instinctive desire to break the contact too quickly.

  Instead, I let my head turn away, nice and slow, and concentrated on my breathing, on relaxing my shoulders, letting my mind empty.

  Not watching. Just waiting.

  I was confident enough to know, as Parker had pointed out, that I was very good at blending into the scenery. The fact that this man took an extra second to check me out meant either I was losing my touch, or he was a real pro.

  And—if he wasn’t the police—what did that mean?

  I let the Lincoln get to the end of the street and make a left before I toed the bike into gear and followed. If the driver was as experienced as his companion, he’d spot a tail within a hundred meters.

  As I shot through on a closing amber and launched into traffic, I flicked my headlights off. Usually, I never ride without them or most car drivers don’t know you’re there—right up to the point you go under their wheels.

  But in this case, being seen was the last thing I wanted.

  I kept half a dozen cars back from the black Lincoln, using the extra height the bike gave me to keep him in sight. The car had a cheap glass-mounted phone aerial, which had been stuck on haphazardly at the far right-hand side of the rear window. It was distinctive, and made them marginally easier to track.

  Even so, I knew these guys were too good for me to stay undetected on their tail for long. I needed help and had no way to get it.

  Sure, my mobile phone was tucked away in the inside pocket of my leather jacket, but it was no use to me there. I cursed the fact I hadn’t bothered to fiddle around getting the Bluetooth headset that went with it to sit comfortably inside my helmet before I’d set off. That was still in my pocket, too.

  I wasn’t armed—unless you counted my habitual Swiss Army knife. Parker had enough clout to ensure both Sean and I received our coveted New York City concealed-carry licenses in very short order, but I didn’t routinely carry unless I was working. Although I was now the fully licensed owner of several firearms, they were all locked away either at the office or the apartment. I had no choice but to stick with my father as long as I could, and ad-lib after that.

  Where are they taking you? I wondered. And—more to the point—why the hell are you letting them?

  We threaded our way downtown and then, to my surprise, kept going. Over the Williamsburg Bridge and into Brooklyn. The Lincoln left the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway at the first exit and carried on down Broadway into Bushwick, the area dropping by stages. Fortunes change fast in New York. Things can go from safe to scary in the length of a city block.

  Inevitably, by hanging back far enough not to get made, eventually I got cut off at a light. I swore long and loud behind my visor as I watched the Lincoln disappearing into the blur of traffic ahead, wallowing over the ruts like an inflatable dinghy in a heavy swell. But, just when I thought I was going to lose them completely, the driver slowed up ahead and made a right. I pinpointed the location by the nearest signpost and dropped the clutch like a drag star the moment the light went green above me, forgetting for a moment how easily the sheer grunt of the Buell would whip up the rear tire.

  Great, Fox. Draw attention to yourself, why don’t you?

  I almost missed the side street where the Lincoln had turned. It was little more than an alleyway, with the obligatory overflowing Dumpster partially blocking the entrance, and a network of zigzag fire escapes caging in the narrow slot to the sky. I slowed long enough to spot the Lincoln stopped about halfway along, but didn’t follow.

  Instead, I kept going, made two quick right turns to bring me out at the far side of the alley. It must have been a squeeze to get the fat Lincoln past the Dumpster in the first place and there was no way the driver would want to reverse out again so, logically, he’d exit here. After London’s intestinal mass of side streets, the U.S. grid pattern was a breeze.

  I cut the Buell’s engine and was aware of the silence that rushed in to fill the vacuum as the throaty rumble died away. After a moment, somewhere behind me in one of the run-down warehouse buildings, something like a jackhammer was being put to work with enthusiasm. Other than that, the distant roar of traffic and the litter rolling gently across the cracked road surface, it was almost peaceful.

  I paddled the bike backwards into a narrow gap between two huge boxy American cars, both of which had more rust than original paint. As I nudged the kickstand down and settled the bike onto it, I undid the strap on my helmet, reached for my phone. At least I’d remembered to charge it. Sports bikes are irritatingly short of cigarette lighter sockets when you get caught with a dead mobile.

  Sean picked up on the second ring, as he nearly always did. I’d never yet seen him fumble for an awkward pocket.

&nbs
p; “Meyer.”

  “It’s me,” I said. “Want to take a guess where I am?”

  There was a slight pause, then he said, “Well, I assume from the background noise that you aren’t naked in bed and covered in half a pint of whipped cream.”

  “Yuck,” I said. “If that’s your fantasy, you can wash the sheets.”

  “I’ll take that as a no, then.”

  “Besides,” I went on, “you know full well where I was heading when I left home this morning. What kind of sick and twisted mind paints that kind of a scenario from a visit to my father?”

  He laughed. “Hey, for all I know, your father has hidden depths.”

  I glanced across at the alleyway. “Yeah, I rather think he’s plumbing new ones right now.”

  Sean’s amusement snuffed out. “Tell me,” he said.

  I described the scene outside the hotel, giving him as clear a picture as I could manage of the man with the buzz-cut who’d put my father into the Lincoln. Out of habit, I’d kept a mental note of the number of turns and lights since we’d crossed the bridge, so I could direct Sean to my current location with some precision, even if I couldn’t tell him exactly where here was.

  “Well, if your old man has a self-destruct button, looks like somebody pressed it,” he said when I was done. “And you’ve no idea who these guys are or what he’s up to with them?”

  “No,” I said. “But the longer he’s in there, the worse feeling I get about the whole thing.”

  “Okay, Charlie, listen to me. Sit tight and wait for backup. I’ll be with you as fast as I can. Do not go in until I get there, all right?”

  “All right,” I agreed, but the reluctance must have shown.

  “Promise me,” he said, and I knew from his tone he’d hold me to it.

  I glanced at the open mouth of the alley again, just as movement caught my eye. A shifty-looking guy walked out, turning up the collar of his cheap jacket. He glanced both ways when he reached the open street, furtive. There were no passing cars and I didn’t think stepping out into traffic was what had him worried.

  “I shouldn’t have let them lift him in the first place,” I said, hearing the stubborn note. “If he’s not out in twenty minutes, I’m going in after him—alone if I have to.”

  “Don’t worry,” Sean said, his voice calm and steady. “You won’t be alone.”

  CHAPTER 5

  I didn’t have to go in alone.

  Sean arrived inside the time I’d allotted, riding the black Buell Ulysses he’d bought at the same time as my own bike. He’d left the office fast enough after my call that he hadn’t even bothered to put on leathers. Instead, he was still in his suit. Apart from a helmet, his only nod to safety was some thin leather gloves that would have shredded in seconds if he’d hit the road surface in them.

  He slotted his bike in alongside mine and flicked up the visor, his eyes hidden behind a pair of classic Ray-Ban Wayfarers with dark green lenses. His smile was all the more brilliant because I couldn’t see his eyes.

  “Status?” he said as he killed the engine.

  “The Lincoln pulled out about five minutes ago.”

  Sean stilled, frowning as he slid off the shades and helmet and hung the lid over the Buell’s bar end.

  “And you’re still here because …”

  “My father wasn’t in the car when it left,” I said. I jerked my head towards the alley. “I hung around over there so if they made a move I could see which building they’d gone into. Got asked twice if I was ‘working.’” My mouth twisted. “I think it must be the leathers. Anyway, two guys came out—Buzz-cut and the driver.” The tension in my hands was somehow connected to my throat. “My father wasn’t with them.”

  Sean touched my shoulder. “Thank you for waiting for me,” he said. “I know what it cost you.”

  I swallowed. “Maybe I’m just too much of a coward to go in alone,” I said stiffly. “At least if you’re with me, then if it comes to it you can be the one to break all this to my mother.”

  Sean set the bike on its stand, climbed off. “What exactly are you expecting to find?”

  I followed him, unzipping my jacket. “It’s a brothel, Sean,” I said. “And you knew that as soon as I told you where I was, didn’t you?”

  He’d already started across the road. I fell into step just quickly enough to catch the way the corner of his mouth quirked upwards, little more than a flicker. “I had a pretty good idea.”

  “So why didn’t you say anything?”

  He sighed, and the flicker became impatience. “What would that have achieved, Charlie? Your father’s the most priggish, moral bastard I’ve ever come across. You said he didn’t go entirely willingly. You’re a bright girl. You put it together.”

  “They left him here,” I murmured, feeling my eyes start to hollow out and burn. “He didn’t want to come, but now he’s stayed. He would only have done that if they’d … forced him.”

  I shouldn’t have left him in there. I shouldn’t have let them put him into that damned car in the first place. At the time, part of me had been still too angry with him to care. And now …

  “Not necessarily,” Sean said. He glimpsed my face and stopped, half turned towards me. “You know the real reason I’m here?”

  I shook my head.

  “The real reason,” he said, “is how could I live with myself if I missed out on a chance to catch the great Richard Foxcroft with his pants down?”

  I threw him a disgusted look and stalked on. We turned into the gloom of the alley together, stepped apart and slowed slightly, wary. At the far end, past the Dumpster, I caught fast glimpses of passing cars, their paintwork glinting in the sunshine. Bright colors, movement. The alley felt stagnant by comparison, hushed and lonely as the grave.

  We both did a casual sweep as we walked into that place, watching for watchers, even overhead. Either there weren’t any, or they were better at concealment than we were at spotting them. Sean paused and reached inside his jacket. When his hand came out, it was holding a cheap Kel-Tec P-11 semiautomatic. He passed it over to me.

  I turned the unfamiliar handgun over in my hands. It was old but serviced, the action well oiled when I worked it. The magazine was fully topped off with hollow-point nines.

  “What’s this?”

  “Unregistered,” he said, succinct. “So I’d leave your gloves on if I were you.”

  “Jesus, Sean! If I get caught with this—”

  He flipped his jacket back to reveal what looked like a matching piece sitting just behind his right hip. The thought that he’d risked carrying two illegal guns through the middle of the city brought me out in a cold sweat. They’d throw away the key.

  “Face it, Charlie,” he said, “if we get caught in a brothel, we’re probably screwed anyway. Just remember the trigger’s going to be a lot stiffer than your SIG, so watch you don’t pull your first shot.”

  “I have fired one of these before, Sean.”

  He flashed me a fleeting smile. “Yeah, sorry.”

  He didn’t need to ask which door my father had been taken through. There was a line of them, peeling and dirty, but only one had a clear path to the base of it to give away its regular use. The door was steel plate, if I was any judge, with a facesize inset panel at head height.

  “I think I’m better suited for this, don’t you?” he murmured.

  Without argument, I backed round to the side of the Dumpster, out of sight of the doorway but only a couple of meters away. I held the gun down flat alongside my leg, where its outline wasn’t obvious from the street, my trigger finger alongside the guard.

  In the four or five paces it took Sean to reach the door, his whole demeanor changed. Suddenly, his shoulders had more of a bow to them and he’d added a slight shuffle to his gait. He was a big guy who usually moved with lightness and a lethal dexterity but now, with his collar and tie sloppily loosened, he just looked clumsy.

  If Parker could see him now, he would have bitten off Bil
l’s other arm rather than offer Sean a partnership. Mind you, if he really could see us now, we’d probably both get the sack.

  Sean reached into his jacket pocket and brought out a sizable wedge of folded bills. He retrieved the Wayfarers, popped the lenses out carefully into a handkerchief and tucked it away, and slid the empty frames on. Not perfect, but convincing enough for now. The whole effect was the kind of tedious office nerd you’d run from the water cooler to avoid. He turned, saw my expression, and winked.

  Then he banged on the steel and, after a long pause, I heard the grate of the panel sliding back.

  “Yeah?” A man’s voice, deep and rough, managing to inject a wealth of hostile suspicion into that single grunted syllable.

  “Oh, er, yeah, hi,” Sean said, his accent perfect New York yuppie. He’d allowed the glasses to slip down his nose a little and now he carefully used the hand that clutched the money to push them back up, like he was nervous. It was a beautifully weighted gesture that couldn’t have failed to suck the man’s attention to the folded bills.

  “I was told I could, er, maybe meet someone here,” Sean went on. He coughed, then turned it into an uncomfortable laugh as the man behind the door didn’t immediately respond. “Er, have I got the wrong place? Only I—”

  “Who sentcha’?” the doorman demanded.

  “Oh, er, well, I don’t know him that good. Guy called Harry. At the office.” Sean waved the money again, jerking his thumb vaguely over his shoulder to indicate anywhere from Wall Street to Honolulu. “Well, he doesn’t actually work with me, y’know? Ha-ha. No, comes in all the time, though. Deliveries. Harry said this was the place.” He leaned closer, lowered his voice and wiped a leer across it. “Said the girls here were, uh, y’know, kinda broad-minded.”

  There was another long pause, then the panel slammed shut. For a moment I thought his performance—authentically sleazy though it was—hadn’t done the trick. Then we heard the bolts slide back.

  Immediately, I came out from round the Dumpster bringing the Kel-Tec up in my right hand, steadied with my left. The money was gone and Sean’s own gun was out though I hadn’t seen him reach for it. As soon as the door began to open and we could tell there wasn’t a secondary security chain, we both hit it. Hard. I was glad of the protective padding in the shoulder of my leather jacket.